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H I S T E Y 



XERXES THE GREAT. 



BY JACOB ABBOTT. 



fflSltJitl) Hufltabinfls. 



NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

fi2 CT. IFF STREF. T. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, 

BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 

In the Cierk''s Office for the Southern District of New York. 



PREFACE. 



One special object which the author of this 
series has had in view, in the plan and method 
which he has followed in the preparation of the 
successive volumes, has been to adapt them to 
the purposes of text-books in schools. The 
study of a general compend of history, such as 
is frequently used as a text-book, is highly use- 
ful, if it comes in at the right stage of educa- 
tion, when the mind is sufficiently matured, and 
has acquired sufficient preliminary knowledge 
to understand and appreciate so condensed a 
generalization as a summary of the whole his- 
tory of a nation contained in an ordinary volume 
must necessarily be. Without this degree of 
maturity of mind, and this preparation, the 
study of such a work will be, as it too frequent- 
ly is, a mere mechanical committing to mem- 
ory of names, and dates, and phrases, which 
awaken no interest, communicate no ideas, and 
impart no useful knowledge to the mind. 

A class of ordinary pupils, who have not yet 



vi Preface. 

become much acquainted with history, would, 
accordingly, be more benefited by having their 
attention concentrated, at first, on detached 
and separate topics, such as those which form 
the subjects, respectively, of these volumes. 
By studying thus fully the history of individual 
monarchs, or the narratives of single events, 
they can go more fully into detail ; they con- 
ceive of the transactions described as realities ; 
their reflecting and reasoning powers are occu- 
pied on what they read; they take notice of 
the motives of conduct, of the gradual develop- 
ment of character, the good or ill desert of ac- 
tions, and of the connection of causes and con- 
sequences, both in respect to the influence of 
wisdom and virtue on the one hand, and, on 
the other, of folly and crime. In a word, their 
minds and hearts are occupied instead of mere- 
ly their memories. They reason, they sympa- 
thize, they pity, they approve, and they con- 
demn. They enjoy the real and true pleasure 
which constitutes the charm of historical study 
for minds that are mature ; and they acquire 
a taste for truth instead of fiction, which will 
tend to direct their reading into proper channels 
in all future years. 

The use of these works, therefore, as text- 
books in classes, has been kept continually in 



Preface. vii 

iriiiid in the preparation of them. The running 
index on the tops of the pages is intended to 
serve instead of questions. These captions can 
be used in their present form as topics, in re- 
spect to which, when announced in the class, 
the pupils are to repeat substantially what is 
said on the page ; or, on the other hand, ques- 
tions in form, if that mode is preferred, can be 
readily framed from them by the teacher. In 
all the volumes, a very regular system of divi- 
sion into chapters is observed, which will great- 
ly facilitate the assignment of lessons 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. THE MOTHER OF XERXES 13 

II. EGYPT AND GREECE 33 

III. DEBATE ON THE PROPOSED INVASION OF 
GREECE 56 

IV. PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION OF GREECE 78 
V. THE CROSSING OF THE HELLESPONT 100 

VI. THE REVIEW OF THE ARMY AT DORISCUS.. 125 

VII. PREPARATIONS OF THE GREEKS FOR DEFENSE 151 

VIII. THE ADVANCE OF XERXES INTO GREECE.... 178 

IX. THE BATTLE OF THERM0PYLJ3 201 

X. THE BURNING OF ATHENS 224 

XI. THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS 245 

XII. THE RETURN TO PERSIA 284 



ENGEAYINGS. 



Page 

ARTABANUS AND THE GHOST Frontispiece. 

MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 

PHERON DEFYING THE NILE. 48 

MAP OF GREECE 101 

XERXES CROSSING THE HELLESPONT 121 

FATE OF THE PERSIAN EMBASSADORS AT SPARTA 160 

CITADEL AT ATHENS 241 

RETURN OF XERXES TO PERSIA, ... ...... 297 



XERXES. 

Chapter 1. 
The Mother of Xerxes. 



Persian magnificence. 



The mother of Xerxes. 



THE name of Xerxes is associated in the 
minds of men with the idea of the highest 
attainable elevation of human magnificence and 
grandeur. This monarch was the sovereign of 
the ancient Persian empire when it was at the 
height of its prosperity and power. It is prob- 
able, however, that his greatness and fame lose 
nothing by the manner in which his story comes 
down to us through the Greek historians. The 
Greeks conquered Xerxes, and, in relating his 
history, they magnify the wealth, the power, 
and the resources of his empire, by way of ex- 
alting the greatness and renown of their own 
exploits in subduing him. 

The mother of Xerxes was Atossa, a daugh- 
ter of Cyrus the Great, who was the founder 
of the Persian empire. Cyrus was killed in 
Scythia, a wild and barbarous region lying 



14 Xerxes. [B.C. 522. 

Cambyses. Ambition and selfishness of kings. 

north of the Black and Caspian Seas. His son 
Cambyses succeeded him. 

A kingdom, or an empire, was regarded, in 
ancient days, much in the light of an estate, 
which the sovereign held as a species of prop- 
erty, and which he was to manage mainly with 
a view to the promotion of his own personal ag- 
grandizement and pleasure. A king or an em- 
peror could have more palaces, m.ore money, 
and more wives than other men ; and if he was 
of an overbearing or ambitious spirit, he could 
march into his neighbors' territories, and after 
gratifying his love of adventure with various 
romantic exploits, and gaining great renown by 
his ferocious impetuosity in battle, he could end 
his expedition, perhaps, by adding his neigh- 
bors' palaces, and treasures, and wives to his 
own. 

Divine Providence, however, the mysterious 
power that overrules all the passions and im- 
pulses of men, and brings extended and general 
good out of local and particular evil, has made 
the ambition and the selfishness of princes the 
great means of preserving order and government 
among men. These great ancient despots, for 
example, would not have been able to collect 
their revenues, or enlist their armies, or pro- 



B.C. 522.] The Mother of Xerxes. 15 

General influence exerted by great sovereigns upon the community. 

cure supplies for their campaigns, unless their 
dominions were under a regular and complete 
system of social organization, such as should al- 
low all the industrial pursuits of commerce and 
of agriculture, throughout the mass of the com- 
munity, to go regularly on. Thus absolute 
monarchs, however ambitious, and selfish, and 
domineering in their characters, have a strong 
personal interest in the establishment of order 
and of justice between man and man throughout 
all the regions which are under their sway. In 
fact, the greater their ambition, their selfish- 
ness, and their pride, the stronger will this in- 
terest be ; for, just in proportion as order, in- 
dustry, and internal tranquillity prevail in a 
country, just in that proportion can revenues 
be collected from it, and armies raised and 
maintained. 

It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose of the 
great heroes, and sovereigns, and conquerors 
that have appeared from time to time among 
mankind, that the usual and ordinary result of 
their influence and action has been that of dis- 
turbance and disorganization. It is true that 
a vast amount of disturbance and disorsraniza- 
tion has often followed from the march of their 
armies, their sieges, their invasions, and the 



16 


Xerxes. 


B.C. 522. 


Labor 


•s of great conquerors. 


Csesar, 



other local and temporary acts of violence which 
they commit ; but these are the exceptions, not 
the rule. It must be that such things are ex- 
ceptions, since, in any extended and general 
view of the subject, a much greater amount of 
social organization, industry, and peace is nec- 
essary to raise and maintain an army, than that 
army can itself destroy. The deeds of destruc- 
tion which great conquerors perform attract 
more attention and make a greater impression 
upon mankind than the quiet, patient, and long- 
continued labors by which they perfect and ex- 
tend the general organization of the social state. 
But these labors, though less noticed by men, 
have really employed the energies of great sov- 
ereigns in a far greater degree than mankind 
have generally imagined. Thus we should de- 
scribe the work of Csesar's life in a single word 
more truly by saying that he organized Eu- 
rope, than that he conquered it. His bridges, 
his roads, his systems of jurisprudence, his coin- 
age, his calendar, and other similar means and 
instruments of social arrangement, and facili- 
ties for promoting the pursuits of industry and 
peace, mark, far more properly, the real work 
which that great conqueror performed among 
mankind, than his battles and his victories. 



B.C. 522.] The Mother of Xerxes. 17 

Darius. William the Conqueror. Napoleon. 

Darius was, in the same way, the organizer of 
Asia. William the Conqueror completed, or, 
rather, advanced very far toward completing, 
the social organization of England ; and even 
in respect to Napoleon, the true and proper me- 
morial of his career is the successful working 
of the institutions, the systems, and the codes 
which he perfected and introduced into the so- 
cial state, and not the brazen column, formed 
from captured cannon, which stands in the 
Place Vendome. 

These considerations, obviously true, though 
not always borne in mind, are, however, to be 
considered as making the characters of the great 
sovereigns, in a moral point of view, neither the 
worse nor the better. In all that they did, 
whether in arranging and systematizing the 
functions of social life, or in ruthless deeds of 
conquest and destruction, they were actuated, 
in a great measure, by selfish ambition. They 
arranged and organized the social state in order 
to form a more compact and solid pedestal for 
the foundation of their power. They maintain- 
ed peace and order among their people, just as 
a master would suppress quarrell among his 
slaves, because peace among laborers is essen- 
tial to productive results. They fixed and de- 

B 



18 Xerxes. [B.C. 522. 

Heroes and conquerors. The main spring of their action. 

fined legal rights, and established courts to de- 
termine and enforce them ; they protected prop- 
erty; they counted and classified men; they 
opened roads ; they built bridges ; they encour- 
aged commerce ; they hung robbers, and ex- 
terminated pirates — all, that the collection of 
their revenues and the enlistment of their ar- 
mies might go on without hinderance or restric- 
tion. Many of them, indeed, may have been 
animated, in some degree, by a higher and no- 
bler sentiment than this. Some may have felt 
a sort of pride in the contemplation of a great, 
and prosperous, and wealthy empire, analogous 
to that which a proprietor feels in surveying a 
well-conditioned, successful, and productive es- 
tate. Others, like Alfred, may have felt a sin- 
cere and honest interest in the welfare of their 
fellow-men, and the promotion of human hap- 
piness may have been, in a greater or less de- 
gree, the direct object of their aim. Still, it 
can not be denied that a selfish and reckless 
ambition has been, in general, the main spring 
of action with heroes and conquerors, which, 
while it aimed only at personal aggrandizement, 
has been made to operate, through the pecuHar 
mechanism of the social state which the Divine 
wisdom has contrived, as a means, in the main, 



B.C.522.] The Mother of Xerxes. 19 

Cyrus. Character and career of Cambyses. 

of preserving and extending peace and order 
among mankind, and not of destroying them. 
^ But to return to Atossa. Her father Cyrus, 
who laid the foundation of the great Persian 
empire, was, for a hero and conqueror, tolerably 
considerate and just, and he desired, probably, 
to promote the welfare and happiness of his mill- 
ions of subjects ; but his son Cambyses, Atos- 
sa's brother, having been brought up in expec- 
tation of succeeding to vast wealth and power, 
and having been, as the sons of the wealthy 
and the powerful often are in all ages of the 
world, wholly neglected by his father during 
the early part of his life, and entirely unaccus- 
tomed to control, became a wild, reckless, proud, 
selfish, and ungovernable young man. His fa- 
ther was killed suddenly in battle, as has al- 
ready been stated, and Cambyses succeeded him. 
Cambyses's career was short, desperate, and 
most tragical in its end.* In fact, he was one 
of the most savage, reckless, and abominable 
monsters that have ever lived. 

It was the custom in those days for the Per- 
sian monarchs to have many wives, and, what 
is still more remarkable, whenever any mon- 

* His history is given in the first chapter of Darius the 
Great. 



20 Xerxes. [B.C. 522. 

Wives of Cambyses. He marries his sister. 

arch died, liis successor inlierited his predeces- 
sor's family as well as his throne. Cyrus had 
several children by his various wives. Camby- 
ses and Smerdis were the only sons, but there 
were daughters, among whom Atossa was the 
most distinguished. The ladies of the court 
were accustomed to reside in different palaces, 
or in different suites of apartments in the same 
palace, so that they lived in a great measure 
isolated from each other. When Cambyses 
came to the throne, and thus entered into pos- 
session of his father's palaces, he saw and fell 
in love with one of his father's daughters. He 
wished to make her one of his wives. He was 
accustomed to the unrestricted indulgence of 
every appetite and passion, but he seems to 
have had some slight misgivings in regard to 
such a step as this. He consulted the Persian 
judges. They conferred upon the subject, and 
then replied that they had searched among the 
laws of the realm, and though they found no 
law allowing a man to marry his sister, they 
found many which authorized a Persian king 
to do whatever he pleased. 

Cambyses therefore added the princess to 
the number of his wives, and not long after- 
ward he married another of his father's daugh- 



B.C.522.] The Mother of Xerxes. 21 

Death of Cambyses. Smerdia the magian. 

ters in the same way. One of these princesses 
was Atossa. 

Cambyses invaded Egypt, and in the course 
of his mad career in that country he killed his 
brother Smerdis and one of his sisters, dnd at 
length was killed himself. Atossa escaped the 
dangers of this stormy and terrible reign, and 
returned safely to Susa after Cambyses's death. 

Smerdis, the brother of Cambyses, would 
have been Cambyses's successor if he had sur- 
vived him ; but he had been privately assassin- 
ated by Cambyses's orders, though his death 
had been kept profoundly secret by those who 
had perpetrated the deed. There was another 
Smerdis in Susa, the Persian capital, who was 
a magian — that is, a sort of priest — in whose 
hands, as regent, Cambyses had left the gov- 
ernment while he was absent on his campaigns. 
This magian Smerdis accordingly conceived the 
plan of usurping the throne, as if he were 
Smerdis the prince, resorting to a great many 
ingenious and cunning schemes to conceal his 
deception. Among his other plans, one was to 
keep himself wholly sequestered from public 
view, with a few favorites, such, especially, as 
had not personally known Smerdis the prince. 
In the same manner he secluded from each oth- 



22 Xerxes. [6.0.522. 

Cimning of Smerdis. His feeling of insecurity. 

er and from himself all who had known Smer- 
dis, in order to prevent their conferring with 
one another, or communicating to each other 
any suspicions which they might chance to en- 
tertain. Such seclusion, so far as related to 
the ladies of the royal family, was not unusual 
after the death of a king, and Smerdis did not 
deviate from the ordinary custom, except to 
make the isolation and confinement of the prin- 
cesses and queens more rigorous and strict than 
common. By means of this policy he was en- 
abled to go on for some months without detec- 
tion, living all the while in the greatest luxury 
and splendor, but at the same time in absolute 
seclusion, and in unceasing anxiety and fear. 

One chief source of his solicitude was lest he 
should be detected by means of his ears I Some 
years before, when he was in a comparatively 
obscure position, he had in some way or other 
offended his sovereign, and was punished by 
having his ears cut off. It was necessary, 
therefore, to keep the marks of this mutilation 
carefully concealed by means of his hair and 
his head-dress, and even with these precautions 
he could never feel perfectly secure. 

At last one of the nobles of the court, a sa- 
gacious and observing man, suspected the im- 



B.C.522.] The Mother of Xerxes. 23 

Smerdis suspected. His imposture discovered. 

posture. He had no access to Smerdis himself, 
but his daughter, whose name was Phsedyma, 
was one of Smerdis's wives. The nobleman 
was excluded from all direct intercourse with 
Smerdis, and even with his daughter ; but he 
contrived to send word to his daughter, inquir- 
ins: whether her husband was the true Smerdis 
or not. She replied that she did not know, in- 
asmuch as she had never seen any other Smer- 
dis, if, indeed, there had been another. The 
nobleman then attempted to communicate with 
Atossa, but he found it impossible to do so. 
Atossa had, of course, known her brother well, 
and was on that very account very closely se- 
cluded by the magian. As a last resort, the 
nobleman sent to his daughter a request that 
she would watch for an opportunity to few for 
her husband's ears while he was asleep. He 
admitted that this would be a dangerous at- 
tempt, but his daughter, he said, ought to be 
willing to make it, since, if her pretended hus- 
band were really an impostor, she ought to take 
even a stronger interest than others in his de- 
tection. Phsedyma was at first afraid to under- 
take so dangerous a commission ; but she at 
length ventured to do so, and, by passing her 
hand under his turban one night, while he was 



24 Xerxes. [B.6.522. 

Death of Smerdis. Succession of Dariua. Atossa's sickness. 

sleeping on his couch, she found that the ears 
were gone.* 

The consequence of this discovery was, that 
a conspiracy was formed to dethrone and de- 
stroy the usurper. The plot was successful. 
Smerdis was killed ; his imprisoned queens 
were set free, and Darius was raised to the 
throne in his stead. 

Atossa now, by that strange principle of suc- 
cession which has been already alluded to, be- 
came the wife of Darius, and she figures fre- 
quently and conspicuously in history during his 
long and splendid reign. 

Her name is brought into notice in one case 
in a remarkable manner, in connection with an 
expedition which Darius sent on an exploring 
tour'^into Greece and Italy. She was herself 
the means, in fact, of sending the expedition. 
She was sick ; and after suffering secretly and 
in silence as long as possible — the nature of her 
complaint being such as to make her unwilling 
to speak of it to others — she at length determ- 
ined to consult a Greek physician who had been 
brought to Persia as a captive, and had acquir- 
ed great celebrity at Susa by his medical sci- 

* For a more particular account of the transaction, and for 
an engraving illustrating this scene, see the history of Darius. 



B.C.52b.] The Mother or Xerxes. 25 

The Greek physician. Atossa's promise. 



ence and skill. The physician said that he 
would undertake her case on condition that she 
would promise to grant him a certain request 
that he would make. She wished to know 
what it was beforehand, but the physician would 
not tell her. He said, however, that it was 
nothing that it would be in any way derogatory 
to her honor to grant him. 

On these conditions Atossa concluded to 
agree to the physician's proposals. He made 
her take a solemn oath that, if he cured her of 
her malady, she would do whatever he required 
of her, provided that it was consistent with hon- 
or and propriety. He then took her case under 
his charge, prescribed for her and attended her, 
and in due time she was cured. The physician 
then told her that what he wished her to do for 
him was to find some means to persuade Darius 
to send him home to his native land. 

Atossa was faithful in fulfilling her promise. 
She took a private opportunity, when she was 
alone with Darius, to propose that he should 
engage in some plans of foreign conquest. She 
reminded him of the vastness of the military 
power which was at his disposal, and of the fa- 
cility with which, by means of it, he might ex- 
tend his dominions. She extolled, too, his ge- 



26 Xerxes. [B.C. 520. 

Atossa's conversation with Darius. Success of her plans. 

nius and energy, and endeavored to inspire in 
his mind some ambitious desires to distinguish 
himself in the estimation of mankind by bring- 
ing his capacities for the performance of great 
deeds into action. 

Darius Hstened to these suggestions of Atos- 
sa with interest and with evident pleasure. He 
said that he had been forming some such plans 
himself. He was going to build a bridge across 
the Hellespont or the Bosporus,' to unite Europe 
and Asia; and he was also going to make an 
incursion into the country of the Scythians, the 
people by whom Cyrus, his great predecessor, 
had been defeated and slain. It would be a 
great glory for him, he said, to succeed in a con- 
quest in which Cyrus had so totally failed. 

But these plans would not answer the pur- 
pose which Atossa had in view. She urged her 
husband, therefore, to postpone his invasion of 
the Scythians till some future time, and 'first 
conquer the Greeks, and annex their territory 
to his dominions. The Scythians, she said, 
were savages, and their country not worth the 
cost of conquering it, while Greece would con- 
stitute a noble prize. She urged the invasion 
of Greece, too, rather than Scythia, as a per- 
sonal favor to herself, for she had been want- 



B.C.520.] The Mother of Xerxes. 27 

The expedition to Greece. Escape of the physician. 

ing, she said, some slaves from Greece for a 
long time — some of the women of Sparta, of 
Corintli, and of Athens, of whose graces and 
accomplishments she had heard so much. 

There was something gratifying to the mili- 
tary vanity of Darius in being thus requested 
to make an incursion to another continent, and 
undertake the conquest of the mightiest nation 
of the earth, for the purpose of procuring accom- 
plished waiting-maids to offer as a present to 
his queen. He became restless and excited 
while listening to Atossa's proposals, and to the 
arguments with which she enforced them, and 
it was obvious that he was very strongly inclin- 
ed to accede to her views. He finally conclud- 
ed to send a commission into Greece to explore 
the country, and to bring back a report on their 
return ; and as he decided to make the Greek 
physician the guide of the expedition, Atossa 
gained her end. 

A full account of this expedition, and of the 
various adventures which the party met with 
on their voyage, is given in our history of Da- 
rius. It may be proper to say here, however, 
that the physician fully succeeded in his plans 
of making his escape. He pretended, at fu'st, 
to be unwilling to go ; and he made only 



28 Xerxes. [B.C. 485. 

Atossa's four sons. Artobazanes. 

the most temporary arrangements in respect to 
the conduct of his affairs while he should be 
gone, in order to deceive the king in regard to 
his intentions of not returning. The king, on 
his part, resorted to some stratagems to ascer- 
tain whether the physician was sincere in his 
professions, but he did not succeed in detecting 
the artifice, and so the party went away. The 
physician never returned. 

Atossa had four sons. Xerxes was the eld- 
est of them. He was not, however, the eldest 
of the sons of Darius, as there were other sons, 
the children of another wife, whom Darius had 
married before he ascended the throne. The 
oldest of these children was named Artobaza- 
nes. Artobazanes seems to have been a prince 
of an amiable and virtuous character, and not 
particularly ambitious and aspiring in his dis- 
position, although, as he was the eldest son of 
his father, he claimed to be his heir. Atossa 
did not admit the validity of this claim, but 
maintained that the oldest of her children was 
entitled to the inheritance. 

It became necessary to decide this question 
before Darius's death ; for Darius, in the pros- 
ecution of a war in which he was engaged, 
formed the design of accompanying his army 



B.C. 485.] The Mother of Xerxes. 29 

Dispute about the succession. Xerxes and Artobazanes. 

on an expedition into Greece, and, before doing 
this, he was bound, according to the laws and 
usages of the Persian realm, to regulate the 
succession. 

There immediately arose an earnest dispute 
between the friends and partisans of Artobaza- 
nes and Xerxes, each side urging very eagerly 
the claims of its own candidate. The mother 
and the friends of Artobazanes maintained that 
he was the oldest son, and, consequently, the 
heir. Atossa, on the other hand, contended 
that Xerxes was the grandson of Cyrus, and 
that he derived from that circumstance the 
highest possible hereditary rights to the Persian 
throne. 

This was in some respects true, for Cyrus 
had been the founder of the empire and the le- 
gitimate monarch, while Darius had no heredit- 
ary claims. He was originally a noble, of high 
rank, indeed, but not of the royal line ; and he 
had been designated as Cyrus's successor in a 
time of revolution, because there was, at that 
time, no prince of the royal family who could 
take the inheritance. Those, therefore, who 
were disposed to insist on the claims of a legit- 
imate hereditary succession, might very plaus- 
ibly claim that Darius's government had been 



30 Xerxes. [B.C. 485. 

The arguments. Influence of Atossa. 

a regency rather than a reign ; that Xerxes, be- 
ing the oldest son of Atossa, Cyrus's daughter, 
was the true representative of the royal line ; 
and that, although it might not be expedient to 
disturb the possession of Darius during his life- 
time, yet that, at his death, Xerxes was un- 
questionably entitled to the throne. 

There was obviously a great deal of truth 
and justice in this reasoning, and yet it was a 
view of the subject not likely to be very agree- 
able to Darius, since it seemed to deny the ex- 
istence of any real and valid title to the sover- 
eignty in him. It assigned the crown, at his 
death, not to his son as such, but to his prede- 
cessor's grandson ; for though Xerxes was both 
the son of Darius and the grandson of Cyrus, it 
was in the latter capacity that he was regarded 
as entitled to the crown in the argument refer- 
red to above. The doctrine was very gratify- 
ing to the pride of Atossa, for it made Xerxes 
the successor to the crown as her son and heir, 
and not as the son and heir of her husband. 
For this very reason it was likely to be not very 
gratifying to Darius. He hesitated very much 
in respect to adopting it. Atossa's ascendency 
over his mind, and her influence generally in 
the Persian court, was almost overwhelming, 



B.C. 485.] The Mother of Xerxes. 31 

The Spartan fugitive. His views of the succession. 

and yet Darius was very unwilling to seem, by 
giving to the oldest grandson of Cyrus the pre- 
cedence over his own eldest son, to admit that 
he himself had no legitimate and proper title to 
the throne. 

While things were in this state, a Greek, 
named Demaratus, arrived at Susa. He was 
a dethroned prince from Sparta, and had fled 
from the political storms of his own country to 
seek refuge in Darius's capital. Demaratus 
found a way to reconcile Darius's pride as a 
sovereign with his personal preferences as a 
husband and a father. He told the king that, 
according to the principles of hereditary succes- 
sion which were adopted in Greece, Xerxes was y_ 
his heir as well as Cyrus's, for he was the old- 
est son who was born after his accession. A 
son, he said, according to the Greek ideas on 
the subject, was entitled to inherit only such 
rank as his father held when the son was born ; 
and that, consequently, none of his children who 
had been born before his accession could have 
any claims to the Persian throne. Artobaza- 
nes, in a word, was to be regarded, he said, 
only as the son of Darius the noble, while Xerx- 
es was the son of Darius the king. 

In the end Darius adopted this view, and des- 



32 Xerxes. [B.C. 485. 

The decision. Death of Dariua. 

ignated Xerxes as his successor in case he 
should not return from his distant expedition. 
He did not return. He did not even live to set 
out upon it. Perhaps the question of the suc- 
cession had not been absolutely and finally set- 
tled, for it arose again and was discussed anew 
when the death of Darius occurred. The man- 
ner in which it was finally disposed of will be 
described in the next chapter. 



B.C. 484.] Egypt AND Greece. 33 

Xerxes assumes the crown. His message to Artobazanes. 



Chapter II. 

Egypt and Greece. 

nnHE arrangements which Darius had made 
-*- to fix and determine the succession, before 
his death, did not entirely prevent the question 
from arising again when his death occurred. 
Xerxes was on the spot at the time, and at once 
assumed the royal functions. His brother w^as 
absent. Xerxes sent a messenger to Artobaza- 
nes^ informing him of their father's death, and 
of his intention of assuming the crown. He 
said, however, that if he did so, he should give 
his brother the second rank, making him, in all 
respects, next to himself in office and honor. 
He sent, moreover, a great many splendid pres- 
ents to Artobazanes, to evince the friendly re- 
gard which he felt for him, and to propitiate 
his favor. 

Artobazanes sent back word to Xerxes that 
he thanked him for his presents, and that he 
accepted them with pleasure. He said that he 

* Plutarch, who gives an account of these occuiTences, va- 
ries tlie orthography of the name. We, however, retain the 
name as given by Herodotus. 

c 



34 Xerxes. [6.0.484. 

Question of the succession again debated. 

considered himself, nevertheless, as justly en- 
titled to the crown, though he should, in the 
event of his accession, treat all his brothers, and 
especially Xerxes, with the utmost considera- 
tion and respect. 

Soon after these occurrences, Artobazanes 
came to Media, where Xerxes was, and the 
question which of them should be the king was 
agitated anew among the nobles of the court. 
In the end, a public hearing of the cause was 
had before Artabanus, a brother of Darius, and, 
of course, an uncle of the contending princes. 
The question seems to have been referred to 
him, either because he held some public office 
which made it his duty to consider and decide 
such a question, or else because he had been 
specially commissioned to act as judge in this 
particular case. Xerxes was at first quite un- 
willing to submit his claims to the decision of 
such a tribunal. The crown was, as he main- 
tained, rightfully his. He thought that the pub- 
lic voice was generally in his favor. Then, be- 
sides, he was already in possession of the throne, 
and by consenting to plead his cause before his 
uncle, he seemed to be virtually abandoning all 
this vantage ground, and trusting instead to 
the mere chance of Artabanus's decision. 



B.C. 484.] Egypt and Greece. 35 

Advice of Atossa. Decision of Artabanus. 

Atossa, however, recommended to him to ac- 
cede to the plan of referring the question to Ar- 
tabanus. He would consider the subject, she 
said, with fairness and impartiality, and decide 
it right. She had no doubt that he would de- 
cide it in Xerxes's favor ; " and if he does not," 
she added, '' and you lose your cause, you only 
become the second man in the kingdom instead 
of the first, and the difference is not so very 
great, after all." 

Atossa may have had some secret intimation 
how Artabanus would decide. 

However this may be, Xerxes at length con- 
cluded to submit the question. A solemn court 
was held, and the case was argued in the pres- 
ence of all the nobles and great officers of state. 
A throne was at hand to which the successful 
competitor was to be conducted as soon as the 
decision should be made. Artabanus heard the 
arguments, and decided in favor of Xerxes. 
Artobazanes, his brother, acquiesced in the de- 
cision with the utmost readiness and good hu- 
mor. He was the first to bow before the king 
in token of homage, and conducted him, him- 
self, to the throne. 

Xerxes kept his promise faithfully of making 
his brother the second in his kingdom. He ap- 



36 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Unfinished wars of Darius. Egypt and Greece, 

pointed him to a very high command in the 
army, and Artobazanes, on his part, served the 
king with great zeal and fidelity, until he was 
at last killed in battle, in the manner hereafter 
to be described. 

As soon as Xerxes found himself established 
on his throne, he was called upon to decide im- 
mediately a great question, namely, which of 
two important wars in which his father had 
been engaged he should first undertake to pros- 
ecute, the war in Egypt or the war in Greece. 

By referring to the map, the reader will see 
that, as the Persian empire extended westward 
to Asia Minor and to the coasts of the Medi- 
terranean Sea, the great countries which border- 
ed upon it in this direction were, on the north, 
Greece, and on the south, Egypt ; the one in 
Europe, and the other in Africa. The Greeks 
and the Egyptians were both wealthy and pow- 
erful, and the countries which they respectively 
inhabited were fertile and beautiful beyond ex- 
pression, and yet in all their essential features 
and characteristics they were extremely dissim- 
ilar. Egypt was a long and narrow inland 
valley. Greece reposed, as it were, in the bo- 
som of the sea, consisting, as it did, of an end- 
less number of islands, promontories, peninsu- 



B.C. 484.] Egypt and Greece. 37 



Character of the Egyptians. Character of the Greeks. 



las, and winding coasts, laved on every side by 
the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Egypt 
was a plain, diversified only by the varieties of 
vegetation, and by the towns and villages, and 
the enormous monumental structures which 
had been erected by man. Greece was a pictur- 
esque and ever-changing scene of mountains 
and valleys ; of precipitous cliffs, winding beach- 
es, rocky capes, and lofty headlands. The char- 
acter and genius of the inhabitants of these two 
countries took their cast, in each case, from the 
physical conformations of the soil. The Egyp- 
tians were a quiet, gentle, and harmless race of 
tillers of the ground. They spent their lives in 
pumping water from the river, in the patient, 
persevering toil of sowing smooth and mellow 
fields, or in reaping the waving grain. The 
Greeks drove flocks and herds up and down the 
declivities of the mountains, or hunted wild 
beasts in forests and fastnesses. They con- 
structed galleys for navigating the seas ; they 
worked the mines and manufactured metals. 
They built bridges, citadels, temples, and towns, 
and sculptured statuary from marble blocks 
which they chiseled from the strata of the 
mountains. It is surprising what a difference 
is made in the genius and character of man by 



38 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Architecture. Monuments of Greece. 

elevations, here and there, of a few thousand 
feet in the country where his genius and char- 
acter are formed. 

The architectural wonders of Egypt and of 
Greece were as diverse from each other as the 
natural features of the soil, and in each case the 
structures were in keeping and in harmony 
with the character of the landscape which they 
respectively adorned. The harmony was, how- 
ever, that of contrast, and not of correspond- 
ence. In Greece, where the landscape itself 
was grand and sublime, the architect aimed 
only at beauty. To have aimed at magnitude 
and grandeur in human structures among the 
mountains, the cliffs, the cataracts, and the re- 
sounding ocean shores of Greece, would have 
been absurd. The Grecian artists were deter- 
red by their unerring instincts from the at- 
tempt. They accordingly built beautiful tem- 
ples, whose white and symmetrical colonnades 
adorned the declivities, or crowned the summits 
of the hills. They sculptured statues, to be 
placed on pedestals in groves and gardens ; they 
constructed fountains ; they raised bridges and 
aqueducts on long ranges of arches and piers ; 
and the summits of ragged rocks crystallized, 
as it were, under their hands into towers, bat- 



B.C. 484.] Egypt and Greece. 39 

Egyptian architecture. Form of Egypt. 

tlements, and walls. In Egypt, on the other 
hand, where the country itself was a level and 
unvarying plain, the architecture took forms of 
prodigious magnitude, of lofty elevation, and of 
vast extent. There were ranges of enormous 
columns, colossal statues, towering obelisks, and 
pyramids rising like mountains from the verd- 
ure of the plain. Thus, while nature gave to 
the country its elements of beauty, man com- 
pleted the landscape by adding to it the grand 
and the sublime. 

The shape and proportions of Egypt would 
be represented by a green ribbon an inch wide 
and a yard long, lying upon the ground in a 
serpentine form ; and to complete the model, we 
might imagine a silver filament passing along 
the center of the green to denote the Nile. The 
real valley of verdure, however, is not of uni- 
form breadth, like the ribbon so representing it, 
but widens as it approaches the sea, as if there 
had been originally a gulf or estuary there, which 
the sediment from the river had filled. 

In fact, the rich and fertile plain which the 
alluvial deposits of the Nile have formed, has 
been protruded for some distance into the sea, 
and the stream divides itself into three great 
branches about a hundred qiiles from its mouth, 



40 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Delta of the Nile. Fertility of Egypt. 

two outermost of which, with the sea-coast in 
front, inclose a vast triangle, which was called 
the Delta, from the Greek letter delta, A, which 
is of a triangular form. In ascending the riv- 
er beyond the Delta, the fertile plain, at first 
twenty-five or thirty miles wide, grows gradu- 
ally narrower, as the ranges of barren hills and 
tracts of sandy deserts on either hand draw 
nearer and nearer to the river. Thus the coun- 
try consists of two long lines of rich and fer- 
tile intervals, one on each side of the stream. 
In the time of Xerxes the whole extent was 
densely populated, every little elevation of the 
land being covered with a village or a town. 
The inhabitants tilled the land, raising upon it 
vast stores of corn, much of which was floated 
down the river to its mouth, and taken thence 
to various countries of Europe and Asia, in 
merchant ships, over the Mediterranean Sea. 
Caravans, too, sometimes came across the neigh- 
boring deserts to obtain supplies of Egyptian 
corn. This was done by the sons of Jacob when 
the crops failed them in the land of Canaan, as 
related in the sacred Scriptures. 

There were two great natural wonders in 
Egypt in ancient times as now : first, it never 
rained there, or, at least, so seldom, that rain 



B.C. 484.] Egypt AND Greece. 41 

No rain in Egypt. Rising of the Nile. 

was regarded as a marvelous phenomenon, in- 
terrupting the ordinary course of nature, like 
an earthquake in England or America. The 
falling of drops of water out of clouds in the 
sky was an occurrence so strange, so unaccount- 
able, that the whole population regarded it with 
astonishment and awe. With the exception of 
these rare and wonder-exciting instances, there 
was no rain, no snow, no hail, no clouds in the 
sky. The sun was always shining, and the 
heavens were always serene. These meteoro- 
logical characteristics of the country, resulting, 
as they do, from permanent natural causes, con- 
tinue, of course, unchanged to the present day ; 
arid the Arabs who live now along the banks 
of the river, keep their crops, when harvested, 
in heaps in the open air, and require no roofs to 
their huts except a light covering of sheaves to 
protect the inmates from the sun. 

The other natural wonder of Egypt was the 
annual rising of the Nile. About midsummer, 
the peasantry who lived along the banks would 
find the river gradually beginning to rise. The 
stream became more turbid, too, as the bosom 
of the waters swelled. No cause for this mys- 
terious increase appeared, as the sky remained 
as blue and serene as before, and the sun, then 



42 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Preparations for the inundation. Gradual rise of the water. 

nearly vertical, continued to shine with even 
more than its wonted splendor. The inhabit- 
ants, however, felt no surprise, and asked for 
no explanation of the phenomenon. It was the 
common course of nature at that season. They 
had all witnessed it, year after year, from child- 
hood. They, of course, looked for it when the 
proper month came round, and, though they 
would have been amazed if the annual flood had 
failed, they thought nothing extraordinary of 
its coming. 

When the swelling of the waters and the 
gradual filling of the channels and low grounds 
in the neighborhood of the river warned the peo- 
ple that the flood was at hand, they all engaged 
busily in the work of completing their prepara- 
tions. The harvests were all gathered from the 
fields, and the vast stores of fruit and corn 
which they yielded were piled in roofless gran- 
aries, built on every elevated spot of ground, 
where they would be safe from the approach- 
ing inundation. The rise of the water was very 
gradual and slow. Streams began to flow in 
all directions over the land. Ponds and lakes, 
growing every day more and more extended, 
spread mysteriously over the surface of the 
meadows ; and all the time while this deluge 



B.C. 484.] Egypt and Greece. 43 

Appearance of the country during an inundation. 

of water was rising to submerge the land, the 
air continued dry, the sun was sultry, and the 
sky was without a cloud. 

As the flood continued to rise, the proportion 
of land and water, and the conformation of the 
irregular and temporary shores which separated 
them, were changed continually, from day to 
day. The inhabitants assembled in their vil- 
lages, which were built on rising grounds, some 
natural, others artificially formed. The waters 
rose more and more, until only these crowded 
islands appeared above its surface — when, at 
length, the valley presented to the view the 
spectacle of a vast expanse of water, calm as a 
summer's sea, brilliant with the reflected rays 
of a tropical sun, and canopied by a sky, which, 
displaying its spotless blue by day and its 
countless stars at night, was always cloudless 
and serene. 

The inundation was at its height in October. 
After that period the waters gradually subsid- 
ed, leaving a slimy. and very fertilizing deposit 
all over the lands which they had covered. 
Though the inhabitants themselves, who had 
been accustomed to this overflow from infancy, 
felt no wonder or curiosity about its cause, the 
philosophers of the day, and travelers from oth- 



44 Xerxes. [6.0.484. 

The three theories. Objections to the first. 

er countries who visited Egypt, made many at- 
tempts to seek an explanation of the phenome- 
non. They had three theories on the subject, 
which Herodotus mentions and discusses. 

The first explanation was, that the rising of 
the river was occasioned by the prevalence of 
northerly winds on the Mediterranean at that 
time of the year, which drove back the waters 
at the mouth of the river, and so caused the ac- 
cumulation of the water in the upper parts of 
the valley. Herodotus thought that this was 
not a satisfactory explanation ; for sometimes, 
as he said, these northerly winds did not blow, 
and yet the rising of the river took place none 
the less when the appointed season came. Be- 
sides, there were other rivers similarly situated 
in respect to the influence of prevailing winds 
at sea in driving in the waters at their mouths, 
which were, nevertheless, not subject to inun- 
dations like the Nile. 

The second theory was, that the Nile took 
its rise, not, like other rivers, in inland lakes, or 
among inland mountains, but in some remote 
and unknown ocean on the other side of the 
continent, which ocean the advocates of this 
theory supposed might be subject to some great 
annual ebb and flow; and from this it might 



B.C. 484] Egypt and Greece. 45 

Second and third theories. Reasons against them. 

result that at stated periods an unusual tide of 
waters might be poured into the channel of the 
river. This, however, could not be true, for the 
waters of the inundation were fresh, not salt, 
which proved that they were not furnished by 
any ocean. 

A third hypothesis was, that the rising of 
the water was occasioned by the melting of the 
snows in summer on the mountains from which 
the sources of the river came. Against this 
supposition Herodotus found more numerous 
and more satisfactory reasons even than he had 
advanced against the others. In the first place, 
the river came from the south — a direction in 
which the heat increased in intensity with ev- 
ery league, as far as travelers had explored it ; 
and beyond those limits, they supposed that the 
burning sun made the country uninhabitable. 
It was preposterous to suppose that there could 
be snow and ice there. Then, besides, the Nile 
had been ascended to a great distance, and re- 
ports from the natives had been brought down 
from regions still more remote, and no tidings 
had ever been brought of ice and snow. It was 
unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that the in- 
undations could arise from such a cause. 

These scientific theories, however, were dis- 



46 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Ideas of the common people in regard to the inundation. 

cussed only among philosophers and learned 
men. The common people had a much more 
simple and satisfactory mode of disposing of the 
subject. They, in their imaginations, invested 
the beneficent river with a sort of life and per- 
sonality, and when they saw its waters rising 
so gently but yet surely, to overflow their whole 
land, leaving it, as they withdrew again, en- 
dued with a new and exuberant fertility, they 
imagined it a living and acting intelligence, that 
in the exercise of some mysterious and inscru- 
table powers, the nature of which was to them 
unknown, and impelled by a kind and friendly 
regard for the country and its inhabitants, came 
annually, of its own accord, to spread over the 
land the blessings of fertility and abundance. 
The mysterious stream being viewed in this 
light, its wonderful powers awakened their ven- 
eration and awe, and its boundless beneficence 
their gratitude. 

Among the ancient Egyptian legends, there 
is one relating to a certain King Pheron which 
strikingly illustrates this feeling. It seems that 
during one of the inundations, while he was 
standing with his courtiers and watching the 
flow of the water, the commotion in the stream 
was much greater than usual on account of a 



B.C. 484.] Egypt and Greece. 49 

Story of King Phcron. His punishment. 

strong wind which was blowing at that time, 
and which greatly increased the violence of the 
whirlpools, and the force and swell of the boil- 
ing eddies. There was given, in fact, to the ap- 
pearance of the river an expression of anger, 
and Pheron, who was of a proud and haughty 
character, like most of the Egyptian kings, 
threw his javelin into one of the wildest of the 
whirlpools, as a token of his defiance of its rage. 
He was instantly struck blind ! 

The sequel of the story is curious, though it 
has no connection with the personality of the 
Nile. Pheron remained blind for ten years. 
At the end of that time it was announced to 
him, by some supernatural communication, 
that the period of his punishment had expired, 
and that his sight might be brought back to 
him by the employment of a certain designated 
means of restoration, which was the bathing of 
his eyes by a strictly virtuous woman. Phe- 
ron undertook compliance with the requisition, 
without any idea that the finding of a virtuous 
woman would be a difficult task. He first 
tried his own wife, but her bathing produced 
no effect. He then tried, one after another, va- 
rious ladies of his court, and afterward others 
of different rank and station, selecting those 

D 



50 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Sequel of the story of King Pheron. Nilometera. 

who were most distinguished for the excellence 
of their characters. He was disappointed, how- 
ever, in them all. The blindness continued 
unchanged. At last, however, he found the 
wife of a peasant, whose bathing produced the 
effect. The monarch's sight was suddenly re- 
stored. The king rewarded the peasant wom- 
an, whose virtuous character was established 
by this indisputable test, with the highest hon- 
ors. The others he collected together, and then 
shut them up in one of his towns. When they 
were all thus safely imprisoned, he set the town 
on fire, and burned them all up together. 

To return to the Nile. Certain columns were 
erected in different parts of the valley, on which 
cubits and the subdivisions of cubits were mark- 
ed and numbered, for the purpose of ascertain- 
ing precisely the rise of the water. Such a 
column was called a Nilometer. There was 
one near Memphis, which was at the upper 
point of the Delta, and others further up the 
river. Such pillars continue to be used to mark 
the height of the inundations to the present day. 

The object of thus accurately ascertaining 
the rise of the water was not mere curiosity, 
for there were certain important business oper- 
ations which depended upon the results. The 



B.C. 484.] Egypt and Greece. 61 

Use of Nilometers. Enormous structures of Egypt, 

fertility and productiveness of the soil each year 
were determined almost wholly by the extent of 
the inundation ; and as the ability of the people 
to pay tribute depended upon their crops, the Ni- 
lometer furnished the government with a crite- 
rion by which they regulated the annual assess- 
ments of the taxes. There were certain canals, 
too, made to convey the water to distant tracts 
of land, which were opened or kept closed ac- 
cording as the water rose to a higher or lower 
point. All these things were regulated by the 
indications of the Nilometer. 

Egypt was famed in the days of Xerxes for 
those enormous structures and ruins of struc- 
tures whose origin was then, as now, lost in a 
remote antiquity. Herodotus found the Pyra- 
mids standing in his day, and presenting the 
same spectacle of mysterious and solitary grand- 
eur which they exhibited to Napoleon. He 
speculated on their origin and their history, just 
as the philosophers and travelers of our day do. 
In fact, he knew less and could learn less about 
them than is known now. It helps to impress 
our minds with an idea of the extreme antiqui- 
ty of these and the other architectural wonders 
of Egypt, to compare them with things which 
are considered old in the Western world. The 



52 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Comparative antiquity of various objects. Great age of the Pyramids. 

ancient and venerable colleges and halls of Ox- 
ford and Cambridge are, many of them, two or 
three hundred years old. There are remains of 
the old wall of the city of London which has 
been standing seven hundred years. This is 
considered a great antiquity. There are, how- 
ever, Roman ruins in Britain, and in various 
parts of Europe, more ancient still. They have 
been standing eighteen hundred years ! Peo- 
ple look upon these with a species of wonder 
and awe that they have withstood the destruc- 
tive influences of time so long. But as to the 
Pyramids, if we go back twenty -five hundred 
years, we find travelers visiting and describing 
them then — monuments as ancient, as venera- 
ble, as mysterious and unknown in their eyes, 
as they appear now in ours. We judge that a 
mountain is very distant when, after traveling 
many miles toward it, it seems still as distant 
as ever. Now, in tracing the history of the pyr- 
amids, the obelisks, the gigantic statues, and 
\^ the vast columnar ruins of the Nile, we may go 
^ back twenty-five hundred years, without, ap- 
parently, making any progress whatever toward 
reaching their origin. 

Such was Egypt. Isolated as it was from 
the rest of the world, and full of fertility and 



B.C. 484.] Egypt AND Greece. 53 

Egypt a mark for the conqueror. Its relation to Persia. 

riches, it offered a marked and definite object 
to the ambition of a conqueror. In fact, on ac- 
count of the peculiar interest which this long 
and narrow valley of verdure, with its wonderful 
structures, the strange and anomalous course 
of nature which prevails in it, and the extraor- 
dinary phases which human life, in consequence, 
exhibits there, has always excited among man- 
kind, heroes and conquerors have generally con- 
sidered it a peculiarly glorious field for their ex- 
ploits. Cyrus, the founder of the Persian mon- 
archy, contemplated the subjugation of it. He 
did not carry his designs into effect, but left 
them for Cambyses his son. Darius held the 
country as a dependency during his reign, 
though, near the close of his life, it revolted. 
This revolt took place while he was preparing 
for his grand expedition against Greece, and he 
was perplexed with the question which of the 
two undertakings, the subjugation of the Egyp- 
tians or the invasion of Greece, he should first 
engage in. In the midst of this uncertainty he 
suddenly died, leaving both the wars themselves 
and the perplexity of deciding between them 
as a part of the royal inheritance falling to his 
son. 

Xerxes decided to prosecute the Egyptian 



54 Xerxes. [B.C. 484. 

Xerxes resolves to subdue Egypt first. The Jews. 

campaign first, intending to postpone the con- 
quest of Greece till he had brought the valley 
of the Nile once more under Persian sway. He 
deemed it dangerous to leave a province of his 
father's empire in a state of successful rebellion, 
while leading his armies off to new undertak 
ings. Mardonius, who was the commander-in- 
chief of the army, and the great general on 
whom Xerxes mainly relied for the execution 
of his schemes, was very reluctant to consent 
to this plan. He was impatient for the con- 
quest of Greece. There was little glory for him 
to acquire in merely suppressing a revolt, and 
reconquering what had been already once sub- 
dued. He was eager to enter upon a new field. 
Xerxes, however, overruled his wishes, and the 
armies commenced their march for Egypt. 
They passed the land of Judea on their way, 
where the captives who had returned from Bab- 
ylon, and their successors, were rebuilding the 
cities and reoocupying the country. Xerxes 
confirmed them in the privileges which Cyrus 
and Darius had granted them, and aided them 
in their work. He then went on toward the 
Nile. The rebellion was easily put down. In 
less than a year from the time of leaving Susa, 
he had reconquered the whole land of Egypt, 



B.C. 484.] Egypt and Greece. 55 

The Egyptians subdued. Return to Susa. 

punished the leaders of the revolt, established 
his brother as viceroy of the country, and re- 
turned in safety to Susa. 

AH this took place in the second year of his 
reign. 



56 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Counselors of Xerxes. Age and character of Mardonius. 



Chapter III. 

Debate on the Proposed Invasion of 
Greece. 

THE two great counselors on whose judg- 
ment Xerxes mainly relied, so far as he 
looked to any other judgment than his own in 
the formation of his plans, were Artabanus, the 
uncle by whose decision the throne had been 
awarded to him, and Mardonius, the command- 
er-in-chief of his armies. Xerxes himself was 
quite a young man, of a proud and lofty, yet 
generous character, and full of self-confidence 
and hope. Mardonius was much older, but he 
was a soldier by profession, and was eager to 
distinguish himself in some great military cam- 
paign. It has always been unfortunate for the 
peace and happiness of mankind, under all mo- 
narchical and despotic governments, in every 
age of the world, that, through some depraved 
and unaccountable perversion of public senti- 
ment, those who are not born to greatness have 
had no means of attaining to it except as heroes 
in war. Many men have, indeed, by their men- 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 57 

The avenues to renown. Blood inherited and blood shed. 

tal powers or their moral excellences, acquired 
an extended and lasting posthumous fame ; but 
in respect to all immediate and exalted distinc- 
tion and honor, it will be found, on reviewing 
the history of the human race, that there have 
generally been but two possible avenues to 
them : on the one hand, high birth, and on the 
other, the performance of great deeds of carnage 
and destruction. There must be, it seems, as 
the only valid claim to renown, either blood in- 
herited or blood shed. The glory of the latter 
is second, indeed, to that of the former, but it 
is only second. He who has sacked a city 
stands very high in the estimation of his fel- 
lows. He yields precedence only to him whose 
grandfather sacked one. 

This state of things is now, it is true, rapid- 
ly undergoing a change. The age of chivalry, 
of military murder and robbery, and of the glo- 
ry of great deeds of carnage and blood, is pass- 
ing away, and that of peace, of industry, and 
of achievements for promoting the comfort and 
happiness of mankind is coming. The men 
who are now advancing to the notice of the 
world are those who, through their commerce 
or their manufactures, feed and clothe their fel- 
low-men by millions, or, by opening new chan- 



58 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Character of Artabanus. His advice to Xerxes. 

nels or new means for international intercourse, 
civilize savages, and people deserts ; while the 
glory of killing and destroying is less and less 
regarded, and more and more readily forgotten. 

In the days of Xerxes, however, there was no 
road to honor but by war, and Mardonius found 
that his only hope of rising to distinction was 
by conducting a vast torrent of military devas- 
tation over some portion of the globe ; and the 
fairer, the richer, the happier the scene which 
he was thus to inundate and overwhelm, the 
greater would be the glory. He was very much 
disposed, therefore, to urge on the invasion of 
Greece by every means in his power. 

Artabanus, on the other hand, the uncle of 
Xerxes, was a man advanced in years, and of 
a calm and cautious disposition. He was bet- 
ter aware than younger men of the vicissitudes 
and hazards of war, and was much more in- 
clined to restrain than to urge on the youthful 
ambition of his nephew. Xerxes had been able 
to present some show of reason for his campaign 
in Egypt, by calling the resistance which that 
country offered to his power a rebellion. There 
was, however, no such reason in the case of 
Greece. There had been two wars between 
Persia and the Athenians already, it is true. 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 59 

The Ionian rebellion. First invasion of Greece. 

In the first, the Athenians had aided their coun- 
trymen in Asia Minor in a fruitless attempt to 
recover their independence. This the Persian 
government considered as aiding and abetting a 
rebellion. In the second, the Persians under 
Datis, one of Darius's generals, had undertaken 
a grand invasion of Greece, and, after landing 
in the neighborhood of Athens, were beaten, 
with immense slaughter, at the great battle of 
Marathon, near that city. The former of these 
wars is known in history as the Ionian rebell- 
ion ; the latter as the first Persian invasion of 
Greece. They had both occurred during the 
reign of Darius, and the invasion under Datis 
had taken place not many years before the ac- 
cession of Xerxes, so that a great number of 
the officers who had served in that campaign 
were still remaining in the court and army of 
Xerxes at Susa. These wars had, however, 
both been terminated, and Artabanus was very 
little inclined to have the contests renewed. 

Xerxes, however, was bent upon making one 
more attempt to conquer Greece, and when the 
time arrived for commencing his preparations, 
he called a grand council of the generals, the 
nobles, and the potentates of the realm, to lay 
his plans before them. The historian who nar- 



60 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Xerxes convenes a public council. His speech. 

rated these proceedings recorded the debate that 
ensued in the following manner. 

Xerxes himself first addressed the assembly, 
to announce and explain his designs. 

"The enterprise, my friends," said he, "in 
which I propose now to engage, and in which I 
am about to ask your co-operation, is no new 
scheme of my own devising. What I design to 
do is, on the other hand, only the carrying for- 
ward of the grand course of measures marked 
out by my predecessors, and pursued by them 
with steadiness and energy, so long as the pow- 
er remained in their hands. That power has 
now descended to me, and with it has devolved 
the responsibility of finishing the work which 
they so successfully began. 

"It is the manifest destiny of Persia to rule 
the world. From the time that Cyrus first 
commenced the work of conquest by subduing 
Media, to the present day, the extent of our em- 
pire has been continually widening, until now 
it covers all of Asia and Africa, with the excep- 
tion of the remote and barbarous tribes, that, 
like the wild beasts which share their forests 
with them, are not worth the trouble of subdu- 
ing. These vast conquests have been made by 
the courage, the energy, and the military power 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 61 

Xerxes recounts the aggressions of the Athenians. 



of Cyrus, Darius, and Cambyses, my renowned 
predecessors. They, on their part, have sub- 
dued Asia and Africa; Europe remains. It 
devolves on me to finish what they have begun. 
Had my father Hved, he would, himself, have 
completed the work. He had already made 
great preparations for the undertaking ; but he 
died, leaving the task to me, and it is plain that 
I can not hesitate to undertake it without a 
manifest dereliction of duty. 

" You all remember the unprovoked and wan- 
ton aggressions which the Athenians commit- 
ted against us in the time of the Ionian rebell- 
ion, taking part against us with rebels and en- 
emies. They crossed the ^gean Sea on that 
occasion, invaded our territories, and at last 
captured and burned the city of Sardis, the 
principal capital of our Western empire. I will 
never rest until I have had my revenge by burn- 
ing Athens. Many of you, too, who are here 
present, remember the fate of the expedition un- 
der Datis. Those of you who were attached to 
that expedition will have no need that I should 
urge you to seek revenge for your own wrongs. 
I am sure that you will all second my under- 
taking with the utmost fidelity and zeal. 

" My plan for gaining access to the Grecian 



62 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Xerxes proposes to build a bridge over the Hellespont. 

territories is not, as before, to convey the troops 
by a fleet of galleys over the ^gean Sea, but 
to build a bridge across the Hellespont, and 
march the army to Greece by land. This 
course, v^hich I am well convinced is practica- 
ble, will be more safe than the other, and the 
bridging of the Hellespont will be of itself a 
glorious deed. The Greeks will be utterly un- 
able to resist the enormous force which we shall 
be able to pour upon them. We can not but 
conquer ; and inasmuch as beyond the Greek 
territories there is, as I am informed, no other 
power at all able to cope with us, we shall easi- 
ly extend our empire on every side to the sea, 
and thus the Persian dominion will cover the 
whole habitable world. 

"I am sure that I can rely on your cordial 
and faithful co-operation in these plans, and 
that each one of you will bring me, from his 
own province or territories, as large a quota of 
men, and of supplies for the war, as is in his 
power. They who contribute thus most liber- 
ally I shall consider as entitled to the highest 
honors and rewards." 

Such was, in substance, the address of Xerxes 
to his council. He concluded by saying that it 
was not his wish to act in the affair in an ar- 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 63 

Excitement of Mardonius. His speech. 

bitrary or absolute manner, and he invited all 
present to express, with perfect freedom, any 
opinions or views which they entertained in re- 
spect to the enterprise. 

While Xerxes had been speaking, the soul of 
Mardonius had been on fire with excitement 
and enthusiasm, and every word which the king 
had uttered only fanned the flame. He rose 
immediately when the king gave permission to 
"the counselors to speak, and earnestly seconded 
the monarch's proposals in the following words : 

''For my part, sire, I can not refrain from 
expressing my high admiration of the lofty spirit 
and purpose on your part, which leads you to 
propose to us an enterprise so worthy of your 
illustrious station and exalted personal renown. 
Your position and power at the present time 
are higher than those ever attained by any hu- 
man sovereign that has ever lived ; and it is 
easy to foresee that there is a career of glory 
before you which no future monarch can ever 
surpass. You are about to complete the con- 
quest of the world ! That exploit can, of course, 
never be exceeded. We all admire the proud 
spirit on your part which will not submit tame- 
ly to the aggressions and insults which we have 
received from the Greeks. We have conquer- 



64 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Mardonius expresses his contempt of the Greeks. 

ed the people of India, of Egypt, of Ethiopia, 
and of Assyria, and that, too, without having 
previously suffered any injury from them, but 
solely from a noble love of dominion ; and shall 
we tamely stop in our career when we see na- 
tions opposed to us from whom we have re- 
ceived so many insults, and endured so many 
wrongs? Every consideration of honor and 
manliness forbids it. 

"We have nothing to fear in respect to the 
success of the enterprise in which you invite us 
to engage. I know the Greeks, and I know 
that they can not stand against our arms. I 
have encountered them many times and in va- 
rious ways. I met them in the provinces of 
Asia Minor, and you all know the result. I 
met them during the reign of Darius your 
father, in Macedon and Thrace — or, rather, 
sought to meet them; for, though I marched 
through the country, the enemy always avoid- 
ed me. They could not be found. They have 
a great name, it is true ; but, in fact, all their 
plans and arrangements are governed by imbe- 
cility and folly. They are not even united 
among themselves. As they speak one com- 
mon language, any ordinary prudence and sa- 
gacity would lead them to combine together, 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 65 

Predictions of Mardonius. Pause in the assembly. 

and make common cause against the nations 
that surround them. Instead of this, they are 
divided into a multitude of petty states and 
kingdoms, and all their resources and power are 
exhausted in fruitless contentions with each 
other. I am convinced that, once across the 
Hellespont, we can march to Athens without 
finding any enemy to oppose our progress ; or, 
if we should encounter any resisting force, it 
will be so small and insignificant as to be in- 
stantly overwhelmed." 

In one point Mardonius was nearly right in 
his predictions, since it proved subsequently, as 
will hereafter be seen, that when the Persian 
army reached the pass of Thermopylae, which 
was the great avenue of entrance, on the north, 
into the territories of the Greeks, they found 
only three hundred men ready there to oppose 
their passage ! 

When Mardonius had concluded his speech, 
he sat down, and quite a solemn pause ensued. 
The nobles and chieftains generally were less 
ready than he to encounter the hazards and un- 
certainties of so distant a campaign. Xerxes 
would acquire, by the success of the enterprise, 
a great accession to his wealth and to his do- 
minion, and Mardonius, too, might expect to 

E 



66 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Speech of Artabanus. His apologies, 

reap very rich rewards; but what were they 
themselves to gain ? They did not dare, how- 
ever, to seem to oppose the wishes of the king, 
and, notwithstanding the invitation which he 
had given them to speak, they remained silent, 
not knowing, in fact, exactly what to say. 

All this time Artabanus, the venerable uncle 
of Xerxes, sat silent like the rest, hesitating 
whether his years, his rank, and the relation 
which he sustained to the young monarch 
would justify his interposing, and make it pru- 
dent and safe for him to attempt to warn his 
nephew of the consequences which he would 
hazard by indulging his dangerous ambition. 
At length he determined to speak. 

"I hope," said he, addressing the king, "that 
it will not displease you to have other views 
presented in addition to those which have al- 
ready been expressed. It is better that all 
opinions should be heard ; the just and the true 
will then appear the more just and true by com- 
parison with others. It seems to me that the 
enterprise which you contemplate is full of dan- 
ger, and should be well considered before it is 
undertaken. When Darius, your father, con- 
ceived of the plan of his invasion of the country 
of the Scythians beyond the Danube, I coun- 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 67 

Artabanus opposes the war. Repulse of Datia. 

seled him against the attempt. The benefits 
to be secured by such an undertaking seemed 
to me wholly insufficient to compensate for the 
expense, the difficulties, and the dangers of it. 
My counsels were, however, overruled. Your 
father proceeded on the enterprise. He crossed 
the Bosporus, traversed Thrace, and then cross- 
ed the Danube ; but, after a long and weary 
contest with the hordes of savages which he 
found in those trackless wilds, he was forced to 
abandon the undertaking, and return, with the 
loss of half his army. The plan which you pro- 
pose seems to me to be liable to the same dan- 
gers, and I fear very much that it will lead to 
the same results. 

'' The Greeks have the name of being a val- 
iant and formidable foe. It may prove in the 
end that they are so. They certainly repulsed 
Datis and all his forces, vast as they were, and 
compelled them to retire with an enormous loss. 
Your invasion, I grant, will be more formidable 
than his. You will throw a bridge across the 
Hellespont, so as to take your troops round 
through the northern parts of Europe into 
Greece, and you will also, at the same time, 
have a powerful fleet in the ^gean Sea. But 
it must be remembered that the naval arma- 



68 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Artabanus warns Xerxes of the danger of the expedition. 

merits of the Greeks in all those waters are 
very formidable. They may attack and destroy 
your fleet. Suppose that they should do so, 
and that then, proceeding to the northward in 
triumph, they should enter the Hellespont and 
destroy your bridge ? Your retreat would be 
cut off, and, in case of a reverse of fortune, your 
army would be exposed to total ruin. 

"Your father, in fact, very narrowly escaped 
precisely this fate. The Scythians came to de- 
stroy his bridge across the Danube while his 
forces were still beyond the river, and, had it 
not been for the very extraordinary fidelity and 
zeal of Histisei^s, who had been left to guard 
the post, they would have succeeded in doing it. 
It is frightful to think that the whole Persian 
army, with the sovereign of the empire at their 
head, were placed in a position where their be- 
ing saved from overwhelming and total destruc- 
tion depended solely on the fidelity and firmness 
of a single man ! Should you place your forces 
and your own person in the same danger, can 
you safely calculate upon the same fortunate 
escape? 

" Even the very vastness of your force may 
be the means of insuring and accelerating its 
destruction, since whatever rises to extraordi- 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 69 

Artabanus vindicatea the character of the Greeks, 

nary elevation and greatness is always exposed 
to dangers correspondingly extraordinary and 
great. Thus tall trees and lofty towers seem 
always specially to invite the thunderbolts of 
Heaven. 

" Mardonius charges the Greeks with a want 
of sagacity, efficiency, and valor, and speaks 
contemptuously of them, as soldiers, in every 
respect. I do not think that such imputations 
are just to the people against whom they are 
directed, or honorable to him who makes them. 
To disparage the absent, especially an absent 
enemy, is not magnanimous or wise ; and I 
very much fear that it will be found in the end 
that the conduct of the Greeks will evince very 
different military qualities from those which 
Mardonius has assigned them. They are rep- 
resented by common fame as sagacious, hardy, 
efficient, and brave, and it may prove that these 
representations are true. 

''My counsel therefore is, that you dismiss 
this assembly, and take further time to consid- 
er this subject before coming to a final decision. 
Perhaps, on more mature reflection, you will 
conclude to abandon the project altogether. If 
you should not conclude to abandon it, but 
should decide, on the other hand, that it must 



70 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Xerxes's displeasure. His angry reply to Artabanus. 

be prosecuted, let me entreat you not to go 
yourself in company with the expedition. Let 
Mardonius take the charge and the responsibil- 
ity. If he does so, I predict that he will leave 
the dead bodies of the soldiers that you intrust 
to him, to be devoured by dogs on the plains of 
Athens or Lacedsemon." 

Xerxes was exceedingly displeased at hearing 
such a speech as this from his uncle, and he 
made a very angry reply. He accused Arta- 
banus of meanness of spirit, and of a cowardice 
disgraceful to his rank and station, in thus ad- 
vocating a tame submission to the arrogant pre- 
tensions of the Greeks. Were it not, he said, 
for the respect which he felt for Artabanus, as 
his father's brother, he would punish him se- 
verely for his presumption in thus basely op- 
posing his sovereign's plans. ''As it is," con- 
tinued he, "I will carry my plans into effect, 
but you shall not have the honor of accompa- 
nying me. You shall remain at Susa with the 
women and children of the palace, and spend 
your time in the effeminate and ignoble pleas- 
ures suited to a spirit so mean. As for myself, 
I must and will carry my designs into execu- 
tion. I could not, in fact, long avoid a contest 
with the Greeks, even if I were to adopt the 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 71 



Xerxes's anxiety. He determines to abandon his project 

cowardly and degrading policy which you rec- 
ommend ; for I am confident that they will very 
soon invade my dominions, if I do not antici- 
pate them by invading theirs." 

So saying, Xerxes dismissed the assembly. 

His mind, however, was not at ease. Thou oh 
he had so indignantly rejected the counsel which 
Artabanus had offered him, yet the impressive 
words in which it had been uttered, and the ar- 
guments with which it had been enforced, 
weighed upon his spirit, and oppressed and de- 
jected him. The longer he considered the sub- 
ject, the more serious his doubts and fears be- 
came, until at length, as the night approached, 
he became convinced that Artabanus was right, 
and that he himself was wrong. His mind 
found no rest until he came to the determina- 
tion to abandon the project after all. He re- 
solved to make this change in his resolution 
known to Artabanus and his nobles in the morn- 
ing, and to countermand the orders which he 
had given for the assembling of the troops. 
Having by this decision restored something like 
repose to his agitated mind, he laid himself 
down upon his couch and went to sleep. 

In the night he saw a vision. It seemed to 
him that a resplendent and beautiful form ap- 



72 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Xerxes sees a vision in the night. 

peared before him, and after regarding him a 
moment with an earnest look, addressed him 
as follows : 

*' And do you really intend to abandon your 
deliberate design of leading an army into Greece, 
after having formally announced it to the realm 
and issued your orders ? Such fickleness is ab- 
surd, and will greatly dishonor you. Resume 
your plan, and go on boldly and perseveringly 
to the execution of it." 

So saying, the vision disappeared. 

When Xerxes awoke in the morning, and the 
remembrance of the events of the preceding day 
returned, mingling itself with the new impres- 
sions which had been made by the dream, he 
was again agitated and perplexed. As, how- 
ever, the various influences which pressed upon 
him settled to their final equilibrium, the fears 
produced by Artabanus's substantial arguments 
and warnings on the preceding day proved to 
be of greater weight than the empty appeal to 
his pride which had been made by the phantom 
of the night. He resolved to persist in the 
abandonment of his scheme. He called his 
council, accordingly, together again, and told 
them that, on more mature reflection, he had 
become convinced that his uncle was right and 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 73 

The spirit appears a second time to Xerxes. 

that he himself had been wrong. The project, 
therefore, was for the present suspended, and 
the orders for the assembling of the forces were 
revoked. The announcement was received by 
the members of the council with the most tu- 
multuous joy. 

That night Xerxes had another dream. The 
same spirit appeared to him again, his counte- 
nance, however, bearing now, instead of the 
friendly look of the preceding night, a new and 
stern expression of displeasure. Pointing men- 
acingly at the frightened monarch with his fin- 
ger, he exclaimed, " You have rejected my ad- 
vice ; you have abandoned your plan ; and now 
I declare to you that, unless you immediately 
resume your enterprise and carry it forward to 
the end, short as has been the time since you 
were raised to your present elevation, a still 
shorter period shall elapse before your downfall 
and destruction." 

The spirit then disappeared as suddenly as 
it came, leaving Xerxes to awake in an agony 
of terror. 

As soon as it was day, Xerxes sent for Arta- 
banus, and related to him his dreams. " T was 
willing," said he, " after hearing what you said, 
and maturely considering the subject, to give 



74 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Xerxes relates his dreams to Artabanus. Opinion of the latter. 

up my plan ; but these dreams, I can not but 
think, are intimations from Heaven that I ought 
to proceed." 

Artabanus attempted to combat this idea by 
representing to Xerxes that dreams were not to 
be regarded as indications of the will of Heav- 
en, but only as a vague and disordered repro- 
duction of the waking thoughts, while the reg- 
ular action of the reason and the judgment by 
which they were ordinarily controlled was sus- 
pended or disturbed by the influence of slum- 
ber. Xerxes maintained, on the other hand, 
that, though this view of the case might explain 
his first vision, the solemn repetition of the 
warning proved that it was supernatural and 
divine. He proposed that, to put the reality of 
the apparition still further to the test, Artaba- 
nus should take his place on the royal couch 
the next night, to see if the specter would not 
appear to him. "You shall clothe yourself," 
said he, " in my robes, put the crown upon your 
head, and take your seat upon the throne. Aft- 
er that, you shall retire to my apartment, lie 
down upon the couch, and go to sleep. If the 
vision is supernatural, it will undoubtedly ap- 
pear to you. If it does not so appear, I will 
admit that it was nothing but a dream." 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 75 

Artabanus takes Xerxes's place. The spirit appears a third time. 



Artabanus made some objection, at first, to 
the details of the arrangement which Xerxes 
proposed, as he did not see, he said, of what ad- 
vantage it could be for him to assume the guise 
and habiliments of the king. If the vision was 
divine, it could not be deceived by such artifices 
as those. Xerxes, however, insisted on his 
proposition, and Artabanus yielded. He as- 
sumed for an hour the dress and the station of 
the king, and then retired to the king's apart- 
ment, and laid himself down upon the couch un- 
der the royal pavilion. As he had no faith in 
the reality of the vision, his mind was quiet and 
composed, and he soon fell asleep. 

At midnight, Xerxes, who was lying in an 
adjoining apartment, was suddenly aroused by 
a loud and piercing cry from the room where 
Artabanus was sleeping, and in a moment aft- 
erward Artabanus himself rushed in, perfectly 
wild with terror. He had seen the vision. It 
had appeared before him with a countenance 
and gestures expressive of great displeasure, 
and after loading him with reproaches for hav- 
ing attempted to keep Xerxes back from his 
proposed expedition into Greece, it attempted 
to bore out his eyes with a red-hot iron with 
which it was armed. Artabanus had barely 



76 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Artabanus is convinced. The invasion decided upon. 

succeeded in escaping by leaping from his couch 
and rushing precipitately out of the room.* 

Artabanus said that he was now convinced 
and satisfied. It was plainly the divine will 
that Xerxes should undertake his projected in- 
vasion, and he would himself, thenceforth, aid 
the enterprise by every means in his power. 
The council was, accordingly, once more con- 
vened. The story of the three apparitions was 
related to them, and the final decision announc- 
ed that the armies were to be assembled for the 
march without any further delay. 

It is proper here to repeat, once for all in this 
volume, a remark which has elsewhere often 
been made in the various works of this series, 
that in studying ancient history at the present 
day, it is less important now to know, in re- 
gard to transactions so remote, what the facts 
actually were which really occurred, than it is 
to know the story respecting them, which, for 
the last two thousand years, has been in circu- 
lation among mankind. It is now, for exam- 
ple, of very little consequence whether there 
ever was or never was such a personage as Her- 
cules; but it is essential that every educated 

* See Frontispiece. 



B.C. 481.] The Debate. 77 



Mardonius probably the ghost. 



man should know the story which ancient writ- 
ers tell in relating his doings. In this view of 
the case, our object, in this volume, is simply 
to give the history of Xerxes just as it stands, 
without stopping to separate the false from the 
true. In relating the occurrences, therefore, 
which have been described in this chapter, we 
simply give the alleged facts to our readers pre- 
cisely as the ancient historians give them to us, 
leaving each reader to decide for himself how 
far he will believe the narrative. In respect to 
this particular story, we will add, that some peo- 
ple think that Mardonius was really the ghost 
by whose appearance Artabanus and Xerxes 
were so dreadfully frightened. 



78 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Orders to the provinces. Mode of raising money. 



Chapter IV. 

Preparations for the Invasion of 
Greece. 

S soon as the invasion of Greece was final- 
ly decided upon, the orders w^ere trans- 
mitted to all the provinces of the empire, re- 
quiring the various authorities and powers to 
make the necessary preparations. There were 
men to be levied, arms to be manufactured, 
ships to be built, and stores of food to be pro- 
vided. The expenditures, too, of so vast an ar- 
mament as Xerxes was intending to organize, 
would require a large supply of money. For 
all these things Xerxes relied on the revenues 
and the contributions of the provinces, and or- 
ders, very full and very imperative, were trans- 
mitted, accordingly, to all the governors and 
satraps of Asia, and especially to those who rul- 
ed over the countries which lay near the west- 
ern confines of the empire, and consequently 
near the Greek frontiers. 

In modern times it is the practice of power- 
ful nations to accumulate arms and munitions 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 79 

Modern mode of eecuring supplies of arms imd money. 

of war on storage in arsenals and naval depots, 
so that the necessary supplies for very extend- 
ed operations, whether of attack or defense, can 
be procured in a very short period of time. In 
respect to funds, too, modern nations have a 
great advantage over those of former days, in 
case of any sudden emergency arising to call 
for great and unusual expenditures. In conse- 
quence of the vast accumulation of capital in 
the hands of private individuals, and the confi- 
dence which is felt in the mercantile honor and 
good faith of most established governments at 
the present day, these governments can procure 
indefinite supplies of gold and silver at any 
time, by promising to pay an annual interest 
in lieu of the principal borrowed. It is true 
that, in these cases, a stipulation is made, by 
which the government may, at a certain speci- 
fied period, pay back the principal, and so ex- 
tinguish the annuity ; but in respect to a vast 
portion of the amount so borrowed, it is not ex- 
pected that this repayment will ever be made. 
The creditors, in fact, do not desire that it 
should be, as owners of property always prefer 
a safe annual income from it to the custody of 
the principal ; and thus governments in good 
credit have sometimes induced their creditors 



80 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Xerxes'e preparations. Four years allotted to them. 

to abate the rate of interest which they were 
receiving, by threatening otherwise to pay the 
debt in full. 

These inventions, however, by which a gov- 
ernment in one generation may enjoy the pleas- 
ure and reap the glory of waging war, and 
throw the burden of the expense on another, 
were not known in ancient times. Xerxes did 
not understand the art of funding a national 
debt, and there would, besides, have probably 
been very little confidence in Persian stocks, if 
any had been issued. He had to raise all his 
funds by actual taxation, and to have his arms, 
and his ships and chariots of war, manufactur- 
ed express. The food, too, to sustain the im- 
mense army which he was to raise, was all to 
be produced, and store-houses were to be built 
for the accumulation and custody of it. All 
this, as might naturally be expected, would re- 
quire time ; and the vastness of the scale on 
which these immense preparations were made 
is evinced by the fact that four years were the 
time allotted for completing them. This period 
includes, however, a considerable time before 
the great debate on the subject described in the 
last chapter. 

The chief scene of activity, during all this 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 81 

Arms. Provisions. Building of ships. 

time, was the tract of country in the western 
part of Asia Minor, and along the shores of the 
^gean Sea. Taxes and contributions were 
raised from all parts of the empire, but the act- 
ual material of war was furnished mainly from 
those provinces which were nearest to the fu- 
ture scene of it. Each district provided such 
things as it naturally and most easily produced. 
One contributed horses, another arms and am- 
munition, another ships, and another provisions. 
The ships which were built were of various 
forms and modes of construction, according to 
the purposes which they were respectively in- 
tended to serve. Some were strictly ships of 
war, intended for actual combat; others were 
transports, their destination being simply the 
conveyance of troops or of military stores. 
There were also a large number of vessels, 
which were built on a peculiar model, prescribed 
by the engineers, being very long and straight- 
sided, and smooth and flat upon their decks. 
These were intended for the bridge across the 
Hellespont. They were made long, so that, 
when placed side by side across the stream, a 
greater breadth might be given to the platform 
of the bridge. All these things were very de- 
liberately and carefully planned. 

F 



82 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Persian possessions on the north of the ^gean Sea. 

Although it was generally on the Asiatic side 
of the ^gean Sea that these vast works of 
preparation were going on, and the crossing of 
the Hellespont was to be the first great move- 
ment of the Persian army, the reader must not 
suppose that, even at this time, the European 
shores were wholly in the hands of the Greeks. 
The Persians had, long before, conquered Thrace 
and a part of Macedon ; and thus the northern 
shores of the ^gean Sea, and many of the isl- 
ands, were already in Xerxes's hands. The 
Greek dominions lay further south, and Xerxes 
did not anticipate any opposition from the ene- 
my, until his army, after crossing the strait, 
should have advanced to the neighborhood of 
Athens. In fact, all the northern country 
through which his route would lie was already 
in his hands, and in passing through it he an- 
ticipated no difficulties except such as should 
arise from the elements themselves, and the 
physical obstacles of the way. The Hellespont 
itself was, of course, one principal point of dan- 
ger. The difficulty here was to be surmounted 
by the bridge of boats. There was, however, 
another point, which was, in some respects, 
'still more formidable : it was the promontory of 
Mount Athos. 



B.C.481.] The Preparations. 83 

Promontory of Mount Athos. Dangerous navigation. 

By looking at the map of Greece, placed at 
the commencement of the next chapter, the 
reader will see that there are two or three sin- 
gular promontories jutting out from the main 
land in the northwestern part of the ^gean 
Sea. The most northerly and the largest of 
these was formed by an immense mountainous 
mass rising out of the water, and connected by 
a narrow isthmus with the main land. The 
highest summit of this rocky pile was called 
Mount Athos in ancient times, and is so mark- 
ed upon the map. In modern days it is called 
Monte Santo, or Holy Mountain, being covered 
with monasteries, and convents, and other ec- 
clesiastical establishments built in the Middle 
Ages. 

Mount Athos is very celebrated in ancient 
history. It extended along the promontory for 
many miles, and terminated abruptly in lofty 
cliffs and precipices toward the sea, where it 
was so high that its shadow, as was said, was 
thrown, at sunset, across the water to the isl- 
and of Lemnos, a distance of twenty leagues. 
It was a frightful specter in the eyes of the an- 
cient navigators, when, as they came coasting 
along from the north in their frail galleys, on 
their voyages to Greece and Italy, they saw it 



84^ Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Plan of Xerxes for the march of his expedition. 

frowning defiance to them as they came, with 
threatening clouds hanging upon its summit, 
and the surges and surf of the ^gean perpet- 
ually thundering upon its base below. To 
make this stormy promontory the more terri- 
ble, it was believed to be the haunt of innumer- 
able uncouth and misshapen monsters of the 
sea, that lived by devouring the hapless seamen 
who were thrown upon the rocks from their 
wrecked vessels by the merciless tumult of the 
waves. 

The plan which Xerxes had formed for the 
advance of his expedition was, that the army 
which was to cross the Hellespont by the bridge 
should advance thence through Macedonia and 
Thessaly, by land, attended by a squadron of 
ships, transports, and galleys, which was to ac- 
company the expedition along the coast by sea. 
The men could be marched more conveniently 
to their place of destination by land. The 
stores, on the other hand, the arms, the sup- 
plies, and the baggage of every description, 
could be transported more easily by sea. Mar- 
donius was somewhat solicitous in respect to 
the safety of the great squadron which would be 
required for this latter service, in doubling the 
promontory of Mount Athos, 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 85 

Former shipwreck of Mardouius. Terrible gale. 

In fact, he had special and personal reason 
for his solicitude, for he had himself, some 
years before, met with a terrible disaster at this 
very spot. It was during the reign of Darius 
that this disaster occurred. On one of the ex- 
peditions which Darius had intrusted to his 
charge, he was conducting a very large fleet 
along the coast, when a sudden storm arose 
just as he was approaching this terrible prom- 
ontory. 

He was on the northern side of the promon- 
tory when the storm came on, and as the wind 
was from the north, it blew directly upon the 
shore. For the fleet to make its escape from 
the impending danger, it seemed necessary, 
therefore, to turn the course of the ships back 
against the wind ; but this, on account of the 
sudden and terrific violence of the gale, it was 
impossible to do. The sails, when they at- 
tempted to use them, were blown away by the 
howling gusts, and the oars were broken to 
pieces by the tremendous dashing of the sea. 
It soon appeared that the only hope of escape 
for the squadron was to press on in the desper- 
ate attempt to double the promontory, and thus 
gain, if possible, the sheltered water under its 
lee. The galleys, accordingly, went on, the pi- 



86 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Destruction of Mardonius's fleet at Mount Athos. 

lots and the seamen exerting their utmost to 
keep them away from the shore. 

All their efforts, however, to do this, were 
vain. The merciless gales drove the vessels, 
one after another, upon the rocks, and dashed 
them to pieces, while the raging sea wrenched 
the wretched mariners from the wrecks to 
which they attempted to cling, and tossed them 
out into the boiling whirlpools around, to the 
monsters that were ready there to devour them, 
as if she were herself some ferocious monster, 
feeding her offspring with their proper prey. 
A few, it is true, of the hapless wretches suc- 
ceeded in extricating themselves from the surf, 
by crawling up upon the rocks, through the 
tangled sea-weed, until they were above the 
reach of the surges ; but when they had done 
so, they found themselves hopelessly imprison- 
ed between the impending precipices which 
frowned above them and the frantic billows 
which were raging and roaring below. They 
gained, of course, by their apparent escape, only 
a brief prolongation of suffering, for they all 
soon miserably perished from exhaustion, ex- 
posure, and cold. 

Mardonius had no desire to encounter this 
danger again. Now the promontory of Mount 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 87 

plan of a canal. The Greeks do not interfere. 

Athos, though high and rocky itself, was con- 
nected with the main land by an isthmus level 
and low, and not very broad. Xerxes determ- 
ined on cutting a canal through this isthmus, 
so as to take his fleet of galleys across the neck, 
and thus avoid the stormy navigation of the 
outward passage. Such a canal would be of 
service not merely for the passage of the great 
fleet, but for the constant communication which 
it would be necessary for Xerxes to maintain 
with his own dominions during the whole period 
of the invasion. 

It might have been expected that the Greeks 
would have interfered to prevent the execution 
of such a work as this ; but it seems that they 
did not, and yet there was a considerable Greek 
population in that vicinity. The promontory 
of Athos itself was quite extensive, being about 
thirty miles long and four or five wide, and it 
had several towns upon it. The canal which 
Xerxes was to cut across the neck of this pen- 
insula was to be wide enough for two triremes 
to pass each other. Triremes were galleys pro- 
pelled by three banks of oars, and were vessels 
of the largest class ordinarily employed ; and as 
the oars by which they were impelled required 
almost as great a breadth of water as the ves- 



88 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Plans of the engineers. Prosecution of the work, 

sels themselves, the canal was, consequently, to 
be very v^ide. 

The engineers, accordingly, laid out the 
ground, and, marking the boundaries by stakes 
and lines, as guides to the workmen, the exca- 
vation was commenced. Immense numbers of 
men were set at work, arranged regularly in 
gangs, according to the various nations which 
furnished them. As the excavation gradually 
proceeded, and the trench began to grow deep, 
they placed ladders against the sides, and sta- 
tioned a series of men upon them ; then the 
earth dug from the bottom was hauled up from 
one to another, in a sort of basket or hod, until 
it reached the top, where it was taken by other 
men and conveyed away. 

The work was very much interrupted and 
impeded, in many parts of the line, by the con- 
tinual caving in of the banks, on account of the 
workmen attempting to dig perpendicularly 
down. In one section — the one which had been 
assigned to the Phoenicians — this difficulty did 
not occur; for the Phoenicians, more consider- 
ate than the rest, had taken the precaution to 
make the breadth of their part of the trench 
twice as great at the top as it was below. By 
this means the banks on each side were formed 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 89 

The Strymou bridged. Granaries and store-houses. 

to a gradual slope, and consequently stood firm. 
The canal was at length completed, and the 
water was let in. 

North of the promontory of Mount Athos the 
reader will find upon the map the River Stry- 
mon, flowing south, not far from the boundary 
between Macedon and Thrace, into the ^gean 
Sea. The army of Xerxes, in its march from 
the Hellespont, would, of course, have to cross 
this river ; and Xerxes having, by cutting the 
canal across the isthmus of Mount Athos, re- 
moved an obstacle in the way of his fleet, re- 
solved next to facilitate the progress of his army 
by bridging the Strymon. 

The king also ordered a great number of 
granaries and store-houses to be built at various 
points along the route which it was intended 
that his army should pursue. Some of these 
were on the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, 
and some on the banks of the Strymon. To 
these magazines the corn raised in Asia for the 
use of the expedition was conveyed, from time 
to time, in transport ships, as fast as it was 
ready, and, being safely deposited, was protect- 
ed by a guard. No very extraordinary means 
of defense seems to have been thought neces- 
sary at these points, for, although the scene of 



90 Xerxes. [B.C.481. 

Xerxes leaves Susa, and begins his march. 

all these preliminary arrangements was on the 
European side of the line, and in what was call- 
ed Greek territory, still this part of the country 
had been long under Persian dominion. The 
independent states and cities of Greece were all 
further south, and the people who inhabited 
them did not seem disposed to interrupt these 
preparations. Perhaps they were not aware to 
what object and end all these formidable move- 
ments on their northern frontier were tending. 
Xerxes, during all this time, had remained in 
Persia. The period at length arrived when, his 
preparations on the frontiers being far advanced 
toward completion, he concluded to move for- 
ward at the head of his forces to Sardis. Sar- 
dis was the great capital of the western part of 
his dominions, and was situated not far from 
the frontier. He accordingly assembled his 
forces, and, taking leave of his capital of Susa 
with much parade and many ceremonies, he 
advanced toward Asia Minor. Entering and 
traversing Asia Minor, he crossed the Halys, 
which had been, in former times, the western 
boundary of the empire, though its limits had 
now been extended very far beyond. Having 
crossed the Halys, the immense procession ad* 
vanced into Phrygia. 



J3.C.481.] The Preparations. 91 

The Meander. Colainye. Pythius. 

A very romantic tale is told of an interview 
between Xerxes and a certain nobleman named 
Pythius, who resided in one of the Phrygian 
towns. The circumstances were these : After 
crossing the Halys, which river flows north into 
the Euxine Sea, the army went on to the west- 
ward through nearly the whole extent of Phryg- 
ia, until at length they came to the sources of 
the streams which flowed west into the ^srean 
Sea. One of the most remarkable of these riv- 
ers was the Meander. There was a town built 
exactly at the source of the Meander — so ex- 
actly, in fact, that the fountain from which the 
stream took its rise was situated in the public 
square of the town, walled in and ornamented 
hke an artificial fountain in a modern city. 
The name of this town was CelsensB. 

When the army reached Celsense and en- 
camped there, Pythius made a great entertain- 
ment for the officers, which, as the number was 
very large, was of course attended with an enor- 
mous expense. Not satisfied with this, Pyth- 
ius sent word to the king that if he was, in any 
respect, in want of funds for his approaching 
campaign, he, Pythius, would take great pleas- 
ure in supplying him. 

Xerxes was surprised at such proofs of wealth 



92 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

The wealth of Pythius. His interview with Xerxes. 

and munificence from a man in comparatively 
a private station. He inquired of his attend- 
ants v^ho Pythius was. They replied that, next 
to Xerxes himself, he was the richest man in 
the world. They said, moreover, that he was 
as generous as he was rich. He had made Da- 
rius a present of a beautiful model of a fruit- 
tree and of a vine, of solid gold. He was by 
birth, they added, a Lydian. 

Lydia was west of Phrygia, and was famous 
for its wealth. The River Pactolus, which was 
so celebrated for its golden sands, flowed through 
the country, and as the princes and nobles con- 
trived to monopolize the treasures which were 
found, both in the river itself and in the mount- 
ains from which it flowed, some of them became 
immensely wealthy. 

Xerxes was astonished at the accounts which 
he heard of Pythius's fortune. He sent for him, 
and asked him what was the amount of his 
treasures. This was rather an ominous ques- 
tion ; for, under such despotic governments as 
those of the Persian kings, the only real safe- 
guard of wealth was, often, the concealment of 
it. Inquiry on the part of a government, in re- 
spect to treasures accumulated by a subject, 
was, often, only a preliminary to the seizure 
and confiscation of them. 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 93 

The amount of Pythius's wealth. His offer to Xerxes. 

Pythius, however, in reply to the king's ques- 
tion, said that he had no hesitation in giving 
his majesty full information in respect to his 
fortune. He had been making, he said, a care- 
ful calculation of the amount of it, with a view 
of determining how much he could offer to con- 
tribute in aid of the Persian campaign. He 
found, he said, that he had two thousand tal- 
ents of silver, and four millions, wanting seven 
thousand, of staters of gold. 

The stater was a Persian coin. Even if we 
knew, at the present day, its exact value, we 
could not determine the precise amount denot- 
ed by the sum which Pythius named, the value 
of money being subject to such vast fluctua- 
tions in different ages of the world. Scholars 
who have taken an interest in inquiring into 
such points as these, have come to the conclu- 
sion that the amount of gold and silver coin 
which Pythius thus reported to Xerxes was 
equal to about thirty millions of dollars. 

Pythius added, after stating the amount of 
the gold and silver which he had at command, 
that it was all at the service of the king for the 
purpose of carrying on the war. He had, he 
said, besides his money, slaves and farms enough 
iox his own maintenance. 



94 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Gratification of Xerxes. His reply to Pythius's offer. 

Xerxes was extremely gratified at this gener- 
osity, and at the proof which it afforded of the 
interest which Pythius felt in the cause of the 
king. "You are the only man," said he, '' who 
has offered hospitality to me or to my army 
since I set out upon this march, and, in addi- 
tion to your hospitality, you tender me your 
whole fortune. I will not, however, deprive 
you of your treasure. I will, on the contrary, 
order my treasurer to pay to you the seven 
thousand staters necessary to make your four 
millions complete. I offer you also my friend- 
ship, and will do any thing in my power, now 
and hereafter, to serve you. Continue to live 
in the enjoyment of your fortune. If you al- 
ways act under the influence of the noble and 
generous impulses w^hich govern you now, you 
wdll never cease to be prosperous and happy." 

If we could end the account of Pythius and 
Xerxes here, what generous and noble-minded 
men we might suppose them to be ! But alas ! 
how large a portion of the apparent generosity 
and nobleness which shows itself among poten- 
tates and kings, turns into selfishness and hy- 
pocrisy when closely examined. Pythius was 
one of the most merciless tyrants that ever liv- 
ed. He held all the people that lived upon his 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 95 

Real character of Pythius. The entertainment of silver and gold. 

vast estates in a condition of abject slavery, 
compelling them to toil continually in his mines, 
in destitution and wretchedness, in order to add 
more and more to his treasures. The people 
came to his wife with their bitter complaints. 
She pitied them, but could not relieve them. 
One day, it is said that, in order to show her 
husband the vanity and folly of living only to 
amass silver and gold, and to convince him how 
little real power such treasures have to satisfy 
the wants of the human soul, she made him a 
great entertainment, in which there was a 
boundless profusion of wealth in the way of ves- 
sels and furniture of silver and gold, but scarce- 
ly any food. There was every thing to satisfy 
the eye with the sight of magnificence, but 
nothing to satisfy hunger. The noble guest sat 
starving in the midst of a scene of unexampled 
riches and splendor, because it was not possi- 
ble to eat silver and gold. 

And as for Xerxes's professions of gratitude 
and friendship for Pythius, they were put to 
the test, a short time after the transactions 
which we have above described, in a remarka- 
ble manner. Pythius had five sons. They 
were all in Xerxes's army. By their departure 
on the distant and dangerous expedition on 



96 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

Xerxes' s gratitude put to the test. He murders Pythius's son. 

which Xerxes was to lead them, their father 
would be left alone. Pythius, under these cir- 
cumstances, resolved to venture so far on the 
sincerity of his sovereign's professions of regard 
as to request permission to retain one of his sons 
at home with his father, on condition of freely 
giving up the rest. 

Xerxes, on hearing this proposal, was greatly 
enraged. '^ How dare you," said he, '' come to 
me with such a demand ? You and all that 
pertain to you are my slaves, and are bound to 
do my bidding without a murmur. You de- 
serve the severest punishment for such an inso- 
lent request. In consideration, however, of your 
past good behavior, I will not inflict upon you 
what you deserve. I will only kill one of your 
sons — the one that you seem to cling to so fond- 
ly. I will spare the rest." So saying, the en- 
raged king ordered the son whom Pythius had 
endeavored to retain to be slain before his eyes, 
and then directed that the dead body should be 
split in two, and the two halves thrown, the 
one on the right side of the road and the other 
on the left, that his army, as he said, might 
^' march between them.'* 

On leaving Phrygia, the army moved on to- 
ward the west. Their immediate destination, 



J3.C.481.J The ]-*repa rations. 97 



Varioiifl objects of interest observed by the army. 



as has already been said, was Sardis, where 
they were to remain until the ensuing spring. 
The historian mentions a number of objects of 
interest which attracted the attention of Xerx- 
es and his officers on this march, which mark 
the geographical peculiarities of the country, or 
illustrate, in some degree, the ideas and man- 
ners of the times. 

There was one town, for example, situated, 
not like Celsense, where a river had its origin, 
but where one disappeared. The stream was a 
branch of the Meander. It came down from 
the mountains Uke any other mountain torrent, 
and then, at the town in question, it plunged 
suddenly down into a gulf or chasm and disap- 
peared. It rose again at a considerable dis- 
tance below, and thence flowed on, without any 
further evasions, to the Meander. 

On the confines between Phrygia and Lydia 
the army came to a place where the road di- 
vided. One branch turned toward the north, 
and led to Lydia; the other inclined to the 
south, and conducted to Caria. Here, too, on 
the frontier, was a monument which had been 
erected by Croesus, the great king of Lydia, 
who lived in Cyrus's day, to mark the eastern 
boundaries of his kingdom. The Persians were, 

G 



98 Xerxes. [B.C. 481. 

The plane-tree. Artificial honey. Salt lake. Gold and silver mines. 

of course, much interested in looking upon this 
ancient landmark, which designated not only 
the eastern limit of Croesus's empire, but also 
what was, in ancient times, the western limit 
of their own. 

There was a certain species of tree which 
grew in these countries called the plane-tree. 
Xerxes found one of these trees so large and 
beautiful that it attracted his special admira- 
tion. He took possession of it in his own name, 
and adorned it with golden chains, and set a 
guard over it. This idolization of a tree was a 
striking instance of the childish caprice and fol- 
ly by which the actions of the ancient despots 
were so often governed. 

As the army advanced, they came to other 
places of interest and objects of curiosity and 
wonder. There was a district where the peo- 
ple made a sort of artificial honey from grain, 
and a lake from which the inhabitants procured 
salt by evaporation, and mines, too, of silver and 
of gold. These objects interested and amused 
the minds of the Persians as they moved along, 
without, however, at all retarding or interrupt- 
ing their progress. In due time they reached 
the great city of Sardis in safety, and here 
Xerxes established his head-quarters, and awaits 
cd the coming of spring. 



B.C. 481.] The Preparations. 99 

Xerxes summons the Greeks to surrender. They indignantly refuse. 

In the mean time, however, he sent heralds 
into Greece to summon the country to surren- 
der to him. This is a common formality when 
an army is abmit to attack either a town, a 
castle, or a kingdom. Xerxes's heralds crossed 
the ^^gean Sea, and made their demands, in 
Xerxes's name, upon the Greek authorities. 
As might have been expected, the embassage 
was fruitless ; and the heralds returned, bring- 
ing with them, from the Greeks, not acts or 
proffers of submission, but stern expressions of 
hostility and defiance. Nothing, of course, now 
remained, but that both parties should prepare 
for the impending crisis. 



100 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Winter in Asia Minor. Destruction of the bridge. 



Chapter V. 

Crossing the Hellespont. 

A LTHOUGH the ancient Asia Minor was 
-^^ in the same latitude as New York, there 
was yet very little winter there. Snows fell, 
indeed, upon the summits of the mountains, 
and ice formed occasionally upon quiet streams, 
and yet, in general, the imaginations of the in- 
habitants, in forming mental images of frost 
and snow, sought them not in their own win- 
ters, but in the cold and icy regions of the 
north, of which, however, scarcely any thing 
was known to them except what was disclosed 
by wild and exaggerated rumors and legends. 

There was, however, a period of blustering 
winds and chilly rains which was called winter, 
and Xerxes was compelled to wait, before com- 
mencing his invasion, until the inclement sea- 
son had passed. As it was, he did not wholly 
escape the disastrous effects of the wintery 
gales. A violent storm arose while he was at 
Sardis, and broke up the bridge which he had 
built across the Hellespont. When the tidings 
of this disaster were brought to Xerxes at his 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. 103 

Indignation of Xerxes. His ridiculous punishment of the sea. 

winter quarters, he was very much enraged. 
He was angry both with the sea for having de- 
stroyed the structure, and with the architects 
who had built it for not having made it strong 
enough to stand against its fury. He determ- 
ined to punish both the waves and the work- 
men. He ordered the sea to be scourged with 
a monstrous whip, and directed that heavy 
chains should be thrown into it, as symbols of 
his defiance of its power, and of his determina- 
tion to subject it to his control. The men who 
administered this senseless discipline cried out 
to the sea, as they did it, in the following words, 
which Xerxes had dictated to them: "Misera- 
ble monster ! this is the punishment which 
Xerxes your master inflicts upon you, on ac- 
count of the unprovoked and wanton injury you 
have done him. Be assured that he will pass 
over you, whether you will or no. He hates 
and defies you, object as you are, through your 
insatiable cruelty, and the nauseous bitterness 
of your waters, of the common abomination of 
mankind." 

As for the men who had built the bridge, 
which had been found thus inadequate to with- 
stand the force of a wintery tempest, he order- 
ed every one of them to be beheaded. 



104 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes orders a new bridge to be made. Its construction. 

The vengeance of the king being thus satis- 
fied, a new set of engineers and workmen were 
designated and ordered to build another bridge. 
Knowing, as, of course, they now did, that their 
lives depended upon the stability of their struc- 
ture, they omitted no possible precaution which 
could tend to secure it. They selected the 
strongest ships, and arranged them in positions 
which would best enable them to withstand the 
pressure of the current. Each vessel was se- 
cured in its place by strong anchors, placed sci- 
entifically in such a manner as to resist, to the 
best advantage, the force of the strain to which 
they would be exposed. There were two ranges 
of these vessels, extending from shore to shore, 
containing over three hundred in each. In each 
range one or two vessels were omitted, on the 
Asiatic side, to allow boats and galleys to pass 
through, in order to keep the communication 
open. These omissions did not interfere with 
the use of the bridge, as the superstructure and 
the roadway above was continued over them. 

The vessels which were to serve for the foun- 
dation of the bridge being thus arranged and 
secured in their places, two immense cables 
were made and stretched from shore to shore, 
each being fastened, at the ends, securely to the 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. 105 

Mode of securing the boats. The bridge finished. 

banks, and resting in the middle on the decks 
of the vessels. For the fastenins^s of these ca- 
bles on the shore there were immense piles driv- 
en into the ground, and huge rings attached to 
the piles. The cables, as they passed along the 
decks of the vessels over the water, were secur- 
ed to them all by strong cordage, so that each 
vessel was firmly and indissolubly bound to all 
the rest. 

Over these cables a platform was made of 
trunks of trees, with branches placed upon them 
to fill .the interstices and level the surface. The 
whole was then covered with a thick stratum 
of earth, which made a firm and substantial 
road like that of a public highway. A high and 
close fence was also erected on each side, so as 
to shut off the view of the water, which might 
otherwise alarm the horses and the beasts of 
burden that were to cross with the army. 

When the news was brought to Xerxes at 
Sardis that the bridge was completed, and that 
all things were ready for the passage, he made 
arrangements for commencing his march. A 
circumstance, however, here occurred that at 
first alarmed him. It was no less a phenome- 
non than an eclipse of the sun. Eclipses were 
considered in those days as extraordinary and 



106 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Eclipse of the sun. March from Sardis. 

supernatural omens, and Xerxes was naturally 
anxious to know what this sudden darkness was 
meant to portend. He directed the magi to 
consider the subject, and to give him their opin- 
ion. Their answer was, that, as the sun was 
the guardian divinity of the Greeks, and the 
moon that of the Persians, the meaning of the 
sudden withdrawal of the light of day doubtless 
was, that Heaven was about to withhold its 
protection from the Greeks in the approaching 
struggle. Xerxes was satisfied with this ex- 
planation, and the preparations for the march 
went on. 

The movement of the grand procession from 
the city of Sardis was inconceivably splendid. 
First came the long trains of baggage, on mules, 
and camels, and horses, and other beasts of bur- 
den, attended by the drivers, and the men who 
had the baggage in charge. Next came an im- 
mense body of troops of all nations, marching 
irregularly, but under the command of the prop- 
er officers. Then, after a considerable interval, 
came a body of a thousand horse, splendidly 
caparisoned, and followed by a thousand spear- 
men, who marched trailing their spears upon 
the ground, in token of respect and submission 
to the king who was coming behind them. 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. 107 

Order of march. Car of Jupiter. Chariot of Xerxes. 

Next to these troops, and immediately in ad- 
vance of the king, were certain religious and 
sacred objects and personages, on which the 
people who gazed upon this gorgeous spectacle 
looked with the utmost awe and veneration. 
There were, first, ten sacred horses, splendidly 
caparisoned, each led by his groom, who was 
clothed in appropriate robes, as a sort of priest 
officiating in the service of a god. Behind these 
came the sacred car of Jupiter. This car was 
very large, and elaborately worked, and was 
profusely ornamented with gold. It was drawn 
by eight white horses. No human being was 
allowed to set his foot upon any part of it, and, 
consequently, the reins of the horses were car- 
ried back, under the car, to the charioteer, who 
walked behind. Xerxes's own chariot came 
next, drawn by very splendid horses, selected 
especially for their size and beauty. His char- 
ioteer, a young Persian noble, sat by his side. 

Then came great bodies of troops. There 
was one corps of two thousand men, the life- 
guards of the king, who were armed in a very 
splendid and costly manner, to designate their 
high rank in the army, and the exalted nature 
of their duty as personal attendants on the sov- 
ereign. One thousand of these life-guards were 



108 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Camp followers. Arrival at the plain of Troy. 

foot soldiers, and the other thousand horsemen. 
After the life-guards came a body of ten thou- 
sand infantry, and after them ten thousand cav- 
alry. This completed what was strictly the 
Persian part of the army. There was an in- 
terval of about a quarter of a mile in the rear 
of these bodies of troops, and then came a vast 
and countless multitude of servants, attendants, 
adventurers, and camp followers of every de- 
scription — a confused, promiscuous, disorderly, 
and noisy throng. 

The immediate destination of this vast horde 
was Abydos ; for it was between Sestos, on the 
European shore, and Abydos, on the Asiatic, 
that the bridge had been built. To reach Aby- 
dos, the route was north, through the province 
of Mysia. In their progress the guides of the 
army kept well inland, so as to avoid the in- 
dentations of the coast, and the various small 
rivers which here flow westward toward the sea. 
Thus advancing, the army passed to the right 
of Mount Ida, and arrived at last on the bank 
of the Scamander. Here they encamped. They 
were upon the plain of Troy. 

The world was filled, in those days, with the 
glory of the military exploits which had been 
performed, some ages before, in the siege and 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. 109 

The grand sacrifice. Dejection of the army. 

capture of Troy ; and it was the custom for ev- 
ery military hero who passed the site of the 
city to pause in his march and spend some time 
amid the scenes of those ancient conflicts, that 
he might inspirit and invigorate his own ambi- 
tion by the associations of the spot, and also 
render suitable honors to the memories of those 
that fell there. Xerxes did this. Alexander 
subsequently did it. Xerxes examined the va- 
rious localities, ascended the ruins of the cita- 
del of Priam, walked over the ancient battle 
fields, and at length, when his curiosity had 
thus been satisfied, he ordered a grand sacrifice 
of a thousand oxen to be made, and a libation 
of corresponding magnitude to be offered, in 
honor of the shades of the dead heroes whose 
deeds had consecrated the spot. 

Whatever excitement and exhilaration, how- 
ever, Xerxes himself may have felt, in approach- 
ing, under these circumstances, the transit of 
the stream, where the real labors and dangers 
of his expedition were to commence, his miser- 
able and helpless soldiers did not share them. 
Their condition and prospects were wretched in 
the extreme. In the first place, none of them 
went willingly. In modern times, at least in 
England and America, armies are recruited by 



110 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Mode of enlistment. Condition of the soldiers, 

enticing the depraved and the miserable to en- 
list, by tendering them a bounty, as it is called, 
that is, a sum of ready money, which, as a 
means of temporary and often vicious pleasure, 
presents a temptation they can not resist. The 
act of enlistment is, however, in a sense volun- 
tary, so that those who have homes, and friends, 
and useful pursuits in which they are peaceful- 
ly engaged, are not disturbed. It was not so 
with the soldiers of Xerxes. They were slaves, 
and had been torn from their rural homes all 
over the empire by a merciless conscription, 
from which there was no possible escape. Their 
life in camp, too, was comfortless and wretch- 
ed. At the present day, when it is so much 
more difficult than it then was to obtain sol- 
diers, and when so much more time and atten- 
tion are required to train them to their work in 
the modern art of war, soldiers must be taken 
care of when obtained ; but in Xerxes's day it 
was much easier to get new supplies of recruits 
than to incur any great expense in providing 
for the health and comfort of those already in 
the service. The arms and trappings, it is true, 
of such troops as were in immediate attendance 
on the king, were very splendid and gay, though 
this was only decoration, after all, and the 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. Ill 

Privations and hardships. Storm on Mount Ida. 

king's decoration too, not theirs. In respect, 
however, to every thing like personal comfort, 
whether of food and of clothing, or the means of 
shelter and repose, the common soldiers were 
utterly destitute and wretched. They felt no 
interest in the campaign ; they had nothing to 
hope for from its success, but a continuance, if 
their lives were spared, of the same miserable 
bondage which they had always endured. There 
was, however, little probability even of this ; 
for whether, in the case of such an invasion, 
the aggressor was to succeed or to fail, the des- 
tiny of the soldiers personally was almost in- 
evitable destruction. The mass of Xerxes's 
army was thus a mere herd of slaves, driven 
along by the whips of their officers, reluctant, 
wretched, and despairing. 

This helpless mass was overtaken one night, 
among the gloomy and rugged defiles and pass- 
es of Mount Ida, by a dreadful storm of wind 
and rain, accompanied by thunder and light- 
ning. Unprovided as they were with the means 
of protection against such tempests, they were 
thrown into confusion, and spent the night in 
terror. Great numbers perished, struck by the 
lightning, or exhausted by the cold and expo- 
sure ; and afterward, when they encamped on 



112 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Abydos. Parade of the troops. 

the plains of Troy, near the Scamander, the 
whole of the water of the stream was not enough 
to supply the wants of the soldiers and the im- 
mense herds of beasts of burden, so that many 
thousands suffered severely from thirst. 

All these things conspired greatly to depress 
the spirits of the men, so that, at last, when 
they arrived in the vicinity of Abydos, the whole 
army was in a state of extreme dejection and 
despair. This, however, was of little conse- 
quence. The repose of a master so despotic 
and lofty as Xerxes is very little disturbed by 
the mental sorrows of his slaves. Xerxes reach- 
ed Abydos, and prepared to make the passage 
of the strait in a manner worthy of the grandeur 
of the occasion. 

The first thing was to make arrangements 
for a great parade of his forces, not, apparently, 
for the purpose of accomplishing any useful end 
of military organization in the arrangement of 
the troops, but to gratify the pride and pleas- 
ure of the sovereign with an opportunity of sur- 
veying them. A great white throne of marble 
was accordingly erected on an eminence not far 
from the shore of the Hellespont, from which 
Xerxes looked down with great complacency 
and pleasure, on the one hand, upon the long 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. 113 

Xerxes weeps. The reason of it. 

lines of troops, the countless squadrons of horse- 
men, the ranges of tents, and the vast herds of 
beasts of burden which were assembled on the 
land, and, on the other hand, upon the fleets of 
ships, and boats, and galleys at anchor upon 
the sea; while the shores of Europe were smil- 
ing in the distance, and the long and magnifi- 
cent roadway which he had made lay floating 
upon the water, all ready to take his enormous 
armament across whenever he should issue the 
command. 

Any deep emotion of the human soul, in per- 
sons of a sensitive physical organization, tends 
to tears ; and Xerxes's heart, being filled with 
exultation and pride, and with a sense of inex- 
pressible grandeur and sublimity as he looked 
upon this scene, was softened by the pleasura- 
ble excitements of the hour, and though, at first, 
his countenance was beaming with satisfaction 
and pleasure, his uncle Artabanus, who stood 
by his side, soon perceived that tears were 
standing in his eyes. Artabanus asked him 
what this meant. It made him sad, Xerxes re- 
plied, to reflect that, immensely vast as the 
countless multitude before him was, in one 
hundred years from that time not one of them 
all would be alive. 

H 



114. Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Comments of writers. Remarks of Artabanus. 

The tender-heartedness which Xerxes mani- 
fested on this occasion, taken in connection with 
the stern and unrelenting tyranny which he was 
exercising over the mighty mass of humanity 
whose mortality he mourned, has drawn forth 
a great variety of comments from writers of ev- 
ery age who have repeated the story. Artaba- 
nus replied to it on the spot by saying that he 
did not think that the king ought to give him- 
self too much, uneasiness on the subject of hu- 
man liability to death, for it happened, in a vast 
number of cases, that the privations and suffer- 
ings of men were so great, that often, in the 
course of their lives, they rather wished to die 
than to live ; and that death was, consequent- 
ly, in some respects, to be regarded, not as in 
itself a woe, but rather as the relief and rem- 
edy for woe. 

There is no doubt that this theory of Arta- 
banus, so far as it applied to the unhappy sol- 
diers of Xerxes, all marshaled before him when 
he uttered it, was eminently true. 

Xerxes admitted that what his uncle said was 
just, but it was, he said, a melancholy subject, 
and so he changed the conversation. He asked 
his uncle whether he still entertained the same 
doubts and fears in respect to the expedition 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. 115 

Conversation with Artabanus. He renews his warnings. 

that he had expressed at Susa when the plan 
was first proposed in the council. Artabanus 
replied that he most sincerely hoped that the 
prognostications of the vision would prove true, 
but that he had still great apprehensions of the 
result. "I have been reflecting," continued he, 
" with great care on the whole subject, and it 
seems to me that there are two dangers of very- 
serious character to which your expedition will 
be imminently exposed." 

Xerxes wished to know what they were. 

" They both arise," said Artabanus, '' from 
the immense magnitude of your operations. In 
the first place, you have so large a number of 
ships, galleys, and transports in your fleet, that 
I do not see how, when you have gone down 
upon the Greek coast, if a storm should arise, 
you are going to find shelter for them. There 
are no harbors there large enough to afford an- 
chorage ground for such an immense number 
of vessels." 

"And what is the other danger?" asked 
Xerxes. 

" The other is the difliculty of finding food 
for such a vast multitude of men as you have 
brought together in your armies. The quan- 
tity of food necessary to supply such countless 



116 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Anxiety of Artabanus. Xerxes is not convinced. 

numbers is almost incalculable. Your grana- 
ries and magazines will soon be exhausted, and 
then, as no country whatever that you can pass 
through will have resources of food adequate 
for such a multitude of mouths, it seems to me 
that your march must inevitably end in a fam- 
ine. The less resistance you meet with, and 
the further you consequently advance, the worse 
it will be for you. I do not see how this fatal 
result can possibly be avoided ; and so uneasy 
and anxious am I on the subject, that I have no 
rest or peace." 

" I admit," said Xerxes, in reply, " that what 
you say is not wholly unreasonable ; but in 
great undertakings it will never do to take 
counsel wholly of our fears. I am willing to 
submit to a very large portion of the evils to 
which I expose myself on this expedition, rath- 
er than not accomplish the end which I have in 
view. Besides, the most prudent and cautious 
counsels are not always the best. He who haz- 
ards nothing gains nothing. I have always ob- 
served that in all the affairs of human life, those 
who exhibit some enterprise and courage in 
what they undertake are far more likely to be 
successful than those who weigh every thing 
and consider every thing, and will not advance 



B.C.480.] CROssiNaTHE Hellespont. 117 

Advice of Artabanus in respect to employing the lonians, 

where they can see any remote prospect of dan- 
ger. If my predecessors had acted on the prin- 
ciples which you recommend, the Persian em- 
pire would never have acquired the greatness 
to which it has now attained. In continuing 
to act on the same principles which governed 
them, I confidently expect the same success. 
We shall conquer Europe, and then return in 
peace, I feel assured, without encountering the 
famine which you dread so much, or any other 
great calamity." 

On hearing these words, and observing how 
fixed and settled the determinations of Xerxes 
were, Artabanus said no more on the general 
subject, but on one point he ventured to offer 
his counsel to his nephew, and that was on the 
subject of employing the lonians in the war. 
The lonians were Greeks by descent. Their 
ancestors had crossed, the ^gean Sea, and set- 
tled at various places along the coast of Asia 
Minor, in the western part of the provinces of 
Caria, Lydia, and Mysia. Artabanus thonght 
it was dangerous to take these men to fight 
against their countrymen. However faithfully 
disposed they might be in commencing the en- 
terprise, a thousand circumstances might occur 
to shake their fidelity and lead them to revolt, 



118 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes's opinion of the lonians. Artabanus is permitted to return. 

when they found themselves in the land of their 
forefathers, and heard the enemies against whom 
they had been brought to contend speaking 
their own mother tongue. 

Xerxes, however, was not convinced by Ar- 
tabanus's arguments. He thought that the 
employment of the lonians was perfectly safe. 
They had been eminently faithful and firm, he 
said, under Histiseus, in the time of Darius's 
invasion of Scythia, when Darius had left them 
to guard his bridge over the Danube. They 
had proved themselves trustworthy then, and 
he would, he said, accordingly trust them now. 
" Besides," he added, " they have left their prop- 
erty, their wives and their children, and all else 
that they hold dear, in our hands in Asia, and 
they will not dare, while we retain such hos- 
tages, to do any thing against us." 
""f Xerxes said, however, that since Artabanus 
was so much concerned in respect to the result 
of the expedition, he should not be compelled to 
accompany it any further, but that he might 
return to Susa instead, and take charge of the 
government thereuntil Xerxes should return. 

A part of the celebration on the great day of 
parade, on which this conversation between the 
king and his uncle was held, consisted of a na- 



B.C.4S0.] Crossing THE Hellespont. 119 

Sham sea fight. Xerxes's address. 

val sea fight, waged on the Hellespont, between 
two of the nations of his army, for the king's 
amusement. The Phoenicians were the victors 
in this combat. Xerxes was greatly delighted 
with the combat, and, in fact, with the whole 
of the magnificent spectacle which the day had 
displayed. 

Soon after this, Xerxes dismissed Artabanus, 
ordering him to return to Susa, and to assume 
the regency of the empire. He convened, also, 
another general council of the nobles of his 
court and the officers of the army, to announce 
to them that the time had arrived for crossing 
the bridge, and to make his farewell address to 
them before they should take their final depart- 
ure from Asia. He exhorted them to enter 
upon the* great work before them with a de- 
termined and resolute spirit, saying that if the 
Greeks were once subdued, no other enemies 
able at all to cope with the Persians would be 
left on the habitable globe. 

On the dismission of the council, orders were 
given to commence the crossing of the bridge 
the next day at sunrise. The preparations 
were made accordingly. In the morning, as 
soon as it was light, and while waiting for the 
rising of the sun, they burned upon the bridge 



120 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Crossing the bridge. Preliminary ceremonies. 

all manner of perfumes, and strewed the way 
with branches of myrtle, the emblem of triumph 
and joy. As the time for the rising of the sun 
drew nigh, Xerxes stood with a golden vessel 
full of wine, which he was to pour out as a li- 
bation as soon as the first dazzling beams should 
appear above the horizon. When, at length, 
the moment arrived, he poured out the wine 
into the sea, throwing the vessel in which it had 
been contained after it as an offering. He also 
threw in, at the same time, a golden goblet of 
great value, and a Persian cimeter. The an- 
cient historian who records these facts was un- 
certain whether these offerins^s were intended 
as acts of adoration addressed to the sun, or as 
oblations presented to the sea — a sort of peace 
offering, perhaps, to soothe the feelings of the 
mighty monster, irritated and chafed by the 
chastisement which it had previously received. 
One circumstance indicated that the offering 
was intended for the sun, for, at the time of 
making it, Xerxes addressed to the great lumin- 
ary a sort of petition, which might be consider- 
ed either an apostrophe or a prayer, imploring 
its protection. He called upon the sun to ac- 
company and defend the expedition, and to pre- 
serve it from every calamity until it should 




imiiiiniiiiiiiiiii!i||i{i{n||ii|i 



B.C.480.] Crossing the Hellespont. 123 

The order of march. Movement of the fleet. 

have accomplished its mission of subjecting all 
Europe to the Persian sway. 

The army then commenced its march. The 
order of march was very much the same as that 
which had been observed in the departure from 
Sardis. The beasts of burden and the baggage 
were preceded and followed by immense bodies 
of troops of all nations. The whole of the first 
day was occupied by the passing of this part of 
the army. Xerxes himself, and the sacred por- 
tion of the train, were to follow them on the 
second day. Accordingly, there came, on the 
second day, first, an immense squadron of horse, 
with garlands on the heads of the horsemen ; 
next, the sacred horses and the sacred car of 
Jupiter. Then came Xerxes himself, in his 
war chariot, with trumpets sounding, and ban- 
ners waving in the air. At the moment when 
Xerxes's chariot entered upon the bridge, the 
fleet of galleys, which had been drawn up in 
preparation near the Asiatic shore, were set in 
motion, and moved in a long and majestic line 
across the strait to the European side, accom- 
panying and keeping pace with their mighty 
master in his progress. Thus was spent the 
second day. 

Five more days were consumed in getting 



124 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Time occupied in the passage. Scene of confusion. 

over the remainder of the army, and the im- 
mense trains of beasts and of baggage which 
followed. The officers urged the work forward 
as rapidly as possible, and, toward the end, as 
is always the case in the movement of such 
enormous masses, it became a scene of incon- 
ceivable noise, terror, and confusion. The offi- 
cers drove forward men and beasts alike by the 
lashes of their whips — every one struggling, 
under the influence of such stimulants, to get 
forward — while fallen animals, broken wagons, 
and the bodies of those exhausted and dying 
with excitement and fatigue, choked the way. 
The mighty mass was, however, at last trans- 
ferred to the European continent, full of anx- 
ious fears in respect to what awaited them, but 
yet having very faint and feeble conceptions of 
the awful scenes in which the enterprise of their 
reckless leader was to end. 



B.C. 480] Review of the Troops. 125 

The fleet and the army sepai-ate. The Chersonesus. 



Chapter VI. 
The Review of the Troops at Do- 

RISCUS. 

\ S soon as the expedition of Xerxes had 
■^^^ crossed the Hellespont and arrived safely 
on the European side, as narrated in the last 
chapter, it became necessary for the fleet and 
the army to separate, and to move, for a time, 
in opposite directions from each other. The 
reader will observe, by examining the map, that 
the army, on reaching the European shore, at 
the point to which they would be conducted by 
a bridge at Abydos, would find themselves in 
the middle of a long and narrow peninsula call- 
ed the Chersonesus, and that, before commenc- 
ing its regular march along the northern coast 
of the ^gean Sea, it would be necessary first 
to proceed for fifteen or twenty miles to the 
eastward, in order to get round the bay by 
which the peninsula is bounded on the north 
and west. While, therefore, the fleet went di- 
rectly westward along the coast, the army turn- 
ed to the eastward, a place of rendezvous hav- 



126 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Suflferings from thirst. The Hebrus. Plain of Doriecus. 

ing been appointed on the northern coast of the 
sea, where they were all soon to meet again. 

The army moved on by a slow and toilsome 
progress until it reached the neck of the penin- 
sula, and then turning at the head of the bay, 
it moved westward again, following the direc- 
tion of the coast. The line of march was, how- 
ever, laid at some distance from the shore, part- 
ly for the sake of avoiding the indentations 
made in the land by gulfs and bays, and partly 
for the sake of crossing the streams from the 
interior at points so far inland that the water 
found in them should be fresh and pure. Not- 
withstanding these precautions, however, the 
water often failed. So immense were the mul- 
titudes of men and of beasts, and so craving 
was the thirst which the heat and the fatigues 
of the march engendered, that, in several in- 
stances, they drank the little rivers dry. 

The first great and important river which the 
army had to pass after entering Europe was 
the Hebrus. Not far from the mouth of the 
Hebrus, where it emptied into the ^gean Sea, 
was a great plain, which was called the. plain 
of Doriscus. There was an extensive fortress 
here, which had been erected by the orders of 
Darius when he had subjugated this part of the 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 127 

Preparations for the gi'eat review. Mode of taking a census. 

country. The position of this fortress was an 
important one, because it commanded the whole 
region watered by the Hebrus, which was a 
very fruitful and populous district. Xerxes had 
been intending to have a grand review and enu- 
meration of his forces on entering the European 
territories, and he judged Doriscus to be a very 
suitable place for his purpose. He could estab- 
lish his own head-quarters in the fortress, while 
his armies could be marshaled and reviewed on 
the plain. The fleet, too, had been ordered to 
draw up to the shore at the same spot, and 
when the army reached the ground, they found 
the vessels already in the ofiing. 

The army accordingly halted, and the nec- 
essary arrangements were made for the review. 
The first thing was to ascertain the numbers 
of the troops ; and as the soldiers were too nu- 
merous to be counted, Xerxes determined to 
measure the mighty mass as so much bulk, and 
then ascertain the numbers by a computation. 
They made the measure itself in the following 
manner : They counted off, first, ten thousand 
men, and brought them together in a compact 
circular mass, in the middle of the plain, and 
then marked a line upon the ground inclosing 
them. Upon this line, thus determined, they 



128 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Immense numbers of the troops. The cavalry. 

built a stone wall, about four feet high, with 
openings on opposite sides of it, by which men 
might enter and go out. When the wall was 
built, soldiers were sent into the inclosure — 
just as corn would be poured by a husbandman 
into a wooden peck — until it was full. The 
mass thus required to fill the inclosure was 
deemed and taken to be ten thousand men. 
This was the first filling of the measure. These 
men were then ordered to retire, and a fresh 
mass was introduced, and so on until the whole 
army was measured. The inclosure was filled 
one hundred and seventy times with the foot 
soldiers before the process was completed, indi- 
cating, as the total amount of the infantry of 
the army, a force of one million seven hundred 
thousand men. This enumeration, it must be 
remembered, included the land forces alone. 

This method of measuring the army in bulk 
was applied only to the foot soldiers ; they con. 
stituted the great mass of the forces convened 
There were, however, various other bodies of 
troops in the army, which, from their nature, 
were more systematically organized than the 
common foot soldiers, and so their numbers 
were known by the regular enrollment. There 
was, for example, a cavalry force of eighty thou- 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 129 

Corps of Arabs and Egyptians. Sum total of the army. 

sand men. There was also a corps of Arabs, on 
camels, and another of Egyptians, in war char- 
iots, which together amounted to twenty thou- 
sand. Then, besides these land forces, there 
were half a million of men in the fleet. Im- 
mense as these numbers are, they were still fur- 
ther increased, as the army moved on, by Xerx- 
es's system of compelling the forces of every 
kingdom and province through which he passed 
to join the expedition ; so that, at length, when 
the Persian king fairly entered the heart of the 
Greek territory, Herodotus, the great narrator 
of his history, in summing up the whole num- 
ber of men regularly connected with the army, 
makes a total of about five millions of men ! 
One hundred thousand men, which is but one 
fiftieth part of five millions, is considered, in 
modern times, an immense army ; and, in fact, 
half even of that number was thought, in the 
time of the American Revolution, a sufficient 
force to threaten the colonies with overwhelm- 
ing destruction. " If ten thousand men will 
not do to put down the rebellion," said an ora- 
tor in the House of Commons, " fifty thousand 
shall:' 

Herodotus adds that, besides the five millions 
regularly connected with the army, there was 

I 



130 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Various nations. Dress and equipments. 

an immense and promiscuous mass of women, 
slaves, cooks, bakers, and camp followers of ev- 
ery description, that no human powers could 
estimate or number. 

But to return to the review. The numbers 
of the army having been ascertained, the next 
thing was to marshal and arrange the men 
by nations under their respective leaders, to be 
reviewed by the king. A very full enumera- 
tion of these divisions of the army is given by 
the historians of the day, with minute descrip- 
tions of the kind of armor which the troops of 
the several nations wore. There were more 
than fifty of these nations in all. Some of them 
were highly civilized, others were semi-barbar- 
ous tribes ; and, of course, they presented, as 
marshaled in long array upon the plain, every 
possible variety of dress and equipment. Some 
were armed with brazen helmets, and coats of 
mail formed of plates of iron ; others wore lin- 
en tunics, or rude garments made of the skins 
of beasts. The troops of one nation had their 
heads covered with helmets, those of another 
with miters, and of a third with tiaras. There 
wag one savage-looking horde that had caps 
made of the skin of the upper part of a horse's 
head, in its natural form, with the ears stand- 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 131 

Uncouth costumes. Various weapons. The lasso. 

ing up erect at the top, and the mane flowing 
down behind. These men held the skins of 
cranes before them instead of shields, so that 
they looked like horned monsters, half beast 
and half bird, endeavoring to assume the guise 
and attitude of men. There was another corps 
whose men were really horned, since they wore 
caps made from the skins of the heads of oxen, 
with the horns standing. Wild beasts were 
personated, too, as well as tame ; for some na- 
tions were clothed in lions' skins, and others in 
panthers' skins — the clothing being considered, 
apparently, the more honorable, in proportion 
to the ferocity of the brute to which it had orig- 
inally belonged. 

The weapons, too, were of every possible form 
and guise. Spears — some pointed with iron, 
some with stone, and others shaped simply by 
being burned to a point in the fire ; bows and 
arrows, of every variety of material and form : 
swords, daggers, slings, clubs, darts, javelins, 
and every other imaginable species of weapon 
which human ingenuity, savage or civilized, 
had then conceived. E ven the lasso-r— the weap- 
on of the American aborigines of modern times 
— was there. It is described by the ancient 
historian as a long thong of leather wound into 



132 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Dresses of various kinds. The Immortals. 

a coil, and finished in a noose at the end, which 
noose the rude warrior who used the implement 
lanched through the air at the enemy, and en- 
tangling rider and horse together by means of 
it, brought them both to the ground. 

There was every variety of taste, too, in the 
fashion and the colors of the dresses which were 
worn. Some were of artificial fabrics, and dyed 
in various and splendid hues. Some were very 
plain, the wearers of them affecting a simple 
and savage ferocity in the fashion of their vest- 
ure. Some tribes had painted skins — beauty, 
in their view, consisting, apparently, in hide- 
ousness. There was one barbarian horde who 
wore very little clothing of any kind. They 
had knotty clubs for weapons, and, in lieu of a 
dress, they had painted their naked bodies half 
white and half a bright vermilion. 

In all this vast array, the corps which stood 
at the head, in respect to their rank and the 
costliness and elegance of their equipment, was 
a Persian squadron of ten thousand men, called 
the Immortals. They had received this desig- 
nation from the fact that the body was kept al- 
ways exactly full, as, whenever any one of the 
number died, another soldier was instantly put 
into his place, whose life was considered in 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 133 

Privileges of the Immortals. The fleet. 

some respects a continuation of the existence 
of the man who had fallen. Thus, by a fiction 
somewhat analogous to that by which the king, 
in England, never dies, these ten thousand Per- 
sians were an immortal band. They were all 
carefully-selected soldiers, and they enjoyed very 
unusual privileges and honors. They were 
mounted troops, and their dress and their arm- 
or were richly decorated with gold. They were 
accompanied in their campaigns by their wives 
and families, for whose use carriages were pro- 
vided which followed the camp, and there was 
a long train of camels besides, attached to the 
service of the corps, to carry their provisions 
and their baggage. 

While all these countless varieties of land 
troops were marshaling and arranging them- 
selves upon the plain, each under its own offi- 
cers and around its own standards, the naval 
commanders were employed in bringing up the 
fleet of galleys to the shore, where they were 
anchored in a long line not far from the beach, 
and with their prows toward the land. Thus 
there was a space of open water left between 
the line of vessels and the beach, along which 
Xerxes's barge was to pass when the time for 
the naval part of the review should arrive. 



134 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes reviews the troops. He reviews the fleet 

When all things were ready, Xerxes mount- 
ed his war chariot and rode slowly around the 
plain, surveying attentively, and with great in- 
terest and pleasure, the long lines of soldiers, in 
all their variety of equipment and costume, as 
they stood displayed before him. It required a 
progress of many miles to see them all. When 
this review of the land forces was concluded, 
the king went to the shore, and embarked on 
board a royal galley which had been prepared 
for him, and there, seated upon the deck under 
a gilded canopy, he was rowed by the oarsmen 
along the line of ships, between their prows and 
the land. The ships were from many nations 
as well as the soldiers, and exhibited the same 
variety of fashion and equipment. The land 
troops had come from the inland realms and 
provinces which occupied the heart of Asia, 
while the ships and the seamen had been fur- 
nished by the maritime regions which extended 
along the coasts of the Black, and the ^gean, 
and the Mediterranean Seas. Thus the people 
of Egypt had furnished two hundred ships, the 
Phoenicians three hundred, Cyprus fifty, the Ci- 
licians and the lonians one hundred each, and 
so with a great many other nations and tribes. 

The various squadrons which were thus com- 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 135 



A lady admiral. Her abilities 

bined in forming this immense fleet were man- 
ned and officered, of course, from the nations 
that severally furnished them, and one of them 
was actually commanded in person by a queen. 
The name of this lady admiral was Artemisia. 
She was the Queen of Caria, a small province 
in the southwestern part of Asia Minor, hav- 
ing Halicarnassus for its capital. Artemisia, 
though in history called a queen, was, in real- 
ity, more properly a regent, as she governed in 
the name of her son, who was yet a child. The 
quota of ships which Caria was to furnish was 
five. Artemisia, being a lady of ambitious and 
masculine turn of mind, and fond of adventure, 
determined to accompany the expedition. Not 
only her own vessels, but also those from some 
neighboring islands, were placed under her 
charge, so that she commanded quite an im- 
portant division of the fleet. She proved, also, 
in the course of the voyage, to be abundantly 
qualified for the discharge of her duties. She 
became, in fact, one of the ablest and most ef- 
ficient commanders in the fleet, not only ma- 
neuvering and managing her own particular di- 
vision in a very successful manner, but also 
taking a very active and important part in the 
general consultations, where what she said was 



136 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Number of vessels in the fleet. Demaratus the Greek. 

listened to with great respect, and always had 
great weight in determining the decisions. In 
the great battle of Salamis she acted a very 
conspicuous part, as will hereafter appear. 

The whole number of galleys of the first class 
in Xerxes's fleet was more than twelve hund- 
red, a number abundantly sufficient to justify 
the apprehensions of Artabanus that no harbor 
would be found capacious enough to shelter 
them in the event of a sudden storm. The line 
which they formed on this occasion, when drawn 
up side by side upon the shore for review, must 
have extended many miles. 

Xerxes moved slowly along this line in his 
barge, attended by the officers of his court and 
the great generals of his army, who surveyed 
the various ships as they passed them, and not- 
ed the diverse national costumes and equip- 
ments of the men with curiosity and pleasure. 
Among those who attended the king on this oc- 
casion was a certain Greek named Demaratus, 
an exile from his native land, who had fled to 
Persia, and had been kindly received by Darius 
some years before. Having remained in the 
Persian court until Xerxes succeeded to the 
throne and undertook the invasion of Greece, 
he concluded to accompany the expedition. 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 137 

Story of Demaratus. Childhood of his mother. 

The story of the political difficulties in which 
Demaratus became involved in his native land, 
and which led to his flight from Greece, was 
very extraordinary. It was this : 

The mother of Demaratus was the daughter 
of parents of high rank and great affluence in 
Sparta, but in her childhood her features were 
extremely plain and repulsive. Now there was 
a temple in the neighborhood of the place where 
her parents resided, consecrated to Helen, a 
princess who, while she lived, enjoyed the fame 
of beinsf the most beautiful woman in the world. 
The nurse recommended that the child should 
be taken every day to this temple, and that pe- 
titions should be offered there at the shrine of 
Helen that the repulsive deformity of her feat- 
ures might be removed. The mother consent- 
ed to this plan, only enjoining upon the nurse 
not to let any one see the face of her unfortu- 
nate offspring in going and returning. The 
nurse accordingly carried the child to the tem- 
ple day after day, and, holding it in her arms 
before the shrine, implored the mercy of Heav- 
en for her helpless charge, and the bestowal 
upon it of the boon of beauty. 

These petitions were, it seems, at length 
beard, for one day, when the nurse was coming 



138 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The change. Ariston, king of Sparta. 

down from the temple, after offering her cus- 
tomary prayer, she was met and accosted by a 
mysterious-looking woman, who asked her what 
it was that she was carrying in her arms. The 
nurse replied that it was a child. The woman 
wanted to look at it. The nurse refused to 
show the face of the child, saying that she had 
been forbidden to do so. The woman, however, 
insisted upon seeing its face, and at last the 
nurse consented and removed the coverings. 
The stranger stroked down the face of the child, 
saying, at the same time, that now that child 
should become the most beautiful woman of 
Sparta. 

Her words proved true. The features of the 
young girl rapidly changed, and her counte- 
nance soon became as wonderful for its loveli- 
ness as it had been before for its hideous de- 
formity. When she arrived at a proper age, a 
certain Spartan nobleman named Agetus, a par- 
ticular friend of the king's, made her his wife. 

The name of the king of Sparta at that time 
was Ariston. He had been twice married, and 
his second wife was still living, but he had no 
children. When he came to see and to know 
the beautiful wife of Agetus, he wished to ob- 
tain her for himself, and began to revolve the 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 139 

The agreement. Birth of Demaratus. 

subject in his mind, with a view to discover 
some method by which he might hope to accom- 
plish his purpose. He decided at length upon 
the following plan. He proposed to Agetus to 
make an exchange of gifts, offering to give to 
him any one object which he might choose from 
all his, that is, Ariston's effects, provided that 
Agetus would, in the same manner, give to 
Ariston whatever Ariston might choose. Age- 
tus consented to the proposal, without, however, 
giving it any serious consideration. As Aris- 
ton was already married, he did not for a mo- 
ment imagine that his wife could be the object 
which the king would demand. The parties to 
this foolish agreement confirmed the obligation 
of it by a solemn oath, and then each made 
known to the other what he had selected. Age- 
tus gained some jewel, or costly garment, or 
perhaps a gilded and embellished weapon, and 
lost forever his beautiful wife. Ariston repu- 
diated his own second wife, and put the prize 
which he had thus surreptitiously acquired in 
her place as a third. 

About seven or eight months after this time 
Demaratus was born. The intelligence was 
brought to Ariston one day by a slave, when he 
was sitting at a public tribunal. Ariston seem- 



140 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Demaratus disowned. His flight. 

ed surprised at the intelligence, and exclaimed 
that the child was not his. He, however, aft- 
erward retracted this disavowal, and owned 
Demaratus as his son. The child grew up, and 
in process of time, when his father died, he suc- 
ceeded to the throne. The magistrates, how- 
ever, who had heard the declaration of his fa- 
ther at the time of his birth, remembered it, 
and reported it to others ; and when Ariston 
died and Demaratus assumed the supreme pow- 
er, the next heir denied his right to the succes- 
sion, and in process of time formed a strong 
party against him. A long series of civil dis- 
sensions arose, and at length the claims of Dem- 
aratus were defeated, his enemies triumphed, 
and he fled from the country to save his life. 
He arrived at Susa near the close of Darius's 
reign, and it was his counsel which led the king 
to decide the contest among his sons for the 
right of succession, in favor of Xerxes, as de- 
scribed at the close of the first chapter. Xerx- 
es had remembered his obligations to Demara- 
tus for this interposition. He had retained him 
in the royal court after his accession to the 
throne, and had bestowed upon him many marks 
of distinction and honor. 

Demaratus had decided to accompany Xerx- 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 141 

Question of Xerxes. Perplexity of Demaratus. 

es on his expedition into Greece, and now, while 
the Persian officers were looking with so much 
pride and pleasure on the immense prepara- 
tions which they were making for the subjuga- 
tion of a foreign and hostile state, Demaratus, 
too, was in the midst of the scene, regarding 
the spectacle with no less of interest, probably, 
and yet, doubtless, with very different feelings, 
since the country upon which this dreadful 
cloud of gloom and destruction was about to 
burst was his own native land. 

After the review was ended, Xerxes sent for 
Demaratus to come to the castle. When he 
arrived, the king addressed him as follows : 

" You are a Greek, Demaratus, and you 
know your countrymen well ; and now, as you 
have seen the fleet and the army that have been 
displayed here to-day, tell me what is your 
opinion. Do you think that the Greeks will 
undertake to defend themselves against such a 
force, or will they submit at once without at- 
tempting any resistance ?" 

Demaratus seemed at first perplexed and un- 
certain, as if not knowing exactly what answer 
to make to the question. At length he asked 
the king whether it was his wish that he should 
respond by speaking the blunt and honest truth, 



142 Xerxes. [6.0.480. 

Demaratus describes the Spartans. Surprise of Xerxes. 

or by saying what would be polite and agree- 
able. 

Xerxes replied that he wished him, of course, 
to speak the truth. The truth itself would be 
what he should consider the most agreeable. 

" Since you desire it, then," said Demaratus, 
" I will speak the exact truth. Greece is the 
child of poverty. The inhabitants of the land 
have learned wisdom and discipline in the se- 
vere school of adversity, and their resolution 
and courage are absolutely indomitable. They 
all deserve this praise ; but I speak more par- 
ticularly of my own countrymen, the people of 
Sparta. I am sure that they will reject any 
proposal which you may make to them for sub- 
mission to your power, and that they will resist 
you to the last extremity. The disparity of 
numbers will have no influence whatever on 
their decision. If all the rest of Greece were 
to submit to you, leaving the Spartans alone, 
and if they should find themselves unable to 
muster more than a thousand men, they would 
give you battle." 

Xerxes expressed great surprise at this asser- 
tion, and thought that Demaratus could not 
possibly mean what he seemed to say. " I ap- 
peal to yourself," said he ; '' would you dare to 



B.C. 480.] Revieav of the Troops. 143 

Reply of Xerxes. His displeasure. 

encounter, alone, ten men? You have been 
the prince of the Spartans, and a prince ought, 
at least, to be equal to two common men ; so 
that to show that the Spartans in general could 
be brought to fight a superiority of force of even 
ten to one, it ought to appear that you would 
dare to engage twenty. This is manifestly ab- 
surd. In fact, for any person to pretend to be 
able or willing to fight under such a disparity 
of numbers, evinces only pride and insolent pre- 
sumption. And even this proportion of ten to 
one, or even twenty to one, is nothing compar- 
ed to the real disparity ; for, even if we grant 
to the Spartans as large a force as there is any 
possibility of their obtaining, I shall then have 
a thousand to one against them. 

" Besides," continued the king, '' there is a 
great difference in the character of the troops. 
The Greeks are all freemen, while my soldiers 
are all slaves — bound absolutely to do my bid- 
ding, without complaint or murmur. Such sol- 
diers as mine, who are habituated to submit 
entirely to the will of another, and who live un- 
der the continual fear of the lash, might, per- 
haps, be forced to go into battle against a great 
superiority of numbers, or under other manifest 
disadvantages ; but free men, never. I do not 



144 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Demaratus's apology. His gratitude to Darius. 

believe that a body of Greeks could be brought 
to engage a body of Persians, man for man. 
Every consideration shows, thus, that the opin- 
ion which you have expressed is unfounded. 
You could only have been led to entertain such 
an opinion through ignorance and unaccount- 
able presumption." 

"I was afraid," replied Demaratus, ''from 
the first, that, by speaking the truth, I should 
offend you. I should not have given you my 
real opinion of the Spartans if you had not or- 
dered me to speak without reserve. You cer- 
tainly can not suppose me to have been influ- 
enced by a feeling of undue partiality for the 
men whom I commended, since they have been 
my most implacable and bitter enemies, and 
have driven me into hopeless exile from my na- 
tive land. Your father, on the other hand, re- 
ceived and protected me, and the sincere grat- 
itude which I feel for the favors which I have 
received from him and from you incline me to 
take the most favorable view possible of the 
Persian cause. 

"I certainly should not be willing, as you 
justly suppose, to engage, alone, twenty men, 
or ten, or even one, unless there was an abso- 
lute necessity for it. I do not say that any sin- 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 145 

Demaratus'a defense of the Spartans. They are governed by law, 

gle Lacedemonian could successfully encounter 
ten or twenty Persians, although in personal 
conflicts they are certainly not inferior to other 
men. It is when they are combined in a body, 
even though that body be small, that their great 
superiority is seen. 

''As to their being free, and thus not easily 
led into battle in circumstances of imminent 
danger, it must be considered that their freedom 
is not absolute, like that of savages in a fray, 
where each acts according to his own individ- 
ual will and pleasure, but it is qualified and 
controlled by law. The Spartan soldiers are 
not personal slaves, governed by the lash of a 
master, it is true ; but they have certain prin- 
ciples of obligation and duty which they all feel 
most solemnly bound to obey. They stand in 
greater awe of the authority of this law than 
your subjects do of the lash. It commands 
them never to fly from the field of battle, what- 
ever may be the number of their adversaries. 
It commands them to preserve their ranks, to 
stand firm at the posts assigned them, and there 
to conquer or die. 

" This is the truth in respect to them. If 
what I say seems to you absurd, I will in fu- 
ture be silent. I have spoken honestly what I 

K 



146 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes resumes his march. Division of the army. 

think, because your majesty commanded me to 
do so ; and, notwithstanding what I have said, 
I sincerely wish that all your majesty's desires 
and expectations may be fulfilled." 

The ideas which Demaratus thus appeared 
to entertain of danger to the countless and for- 
midable hosts of Xerxes's army, from so small 
and insignificant a power as that of Sparta, 
seemed to Xerxes too absurd to awaken any 
serious displeasure in his mind. He only smil- 
ed, therefore, at Demaratus's fears, and dis- 
missed him. 

Leaving a garrison and a governor in posses- 
sion of the castle of Doriscus, Xerxes resumed 
his march along the northern shores of the 
.^gean Sea, the immense swarms of men fill- 
ing all the roads, devouring every thing capable 
of being used as food, either for beast or man, 
and drinking all the brooks and smaller rivers 
dry. Even with this total consumption of the 
food and the water which they obtained on the 
march, the supplies would have been found in- 
sufficient if the whole army had advanced 
through one tract of country. They accord- 
ingly divided the host into three great columns, 
one of which kept near the shore ; the other 
marched far in the interior, and the third in the 



B.C. 480.] Review of the T roups. 147 

The Strymon. '""Htm^^rT ^rlfi^. 

intermediate space. They thus exhausted the 
resources of a very wide region. All the men 
too, that were capable of bearing arms in the 
nations that these several divisions passed on 
the way, they compelled to join them, so that 
the army left, as it moved along, a very broad 
extent of country trampled down, impoverished, 
desolate, and full of lamentation and woe. The 
whole march was perhaps the most gigantic 
crime against the rights and the happiness of 
man that human wickedness has ever been able 
to commit. 

The army halted, from time to time, for va- 
rious purposes, sometimes for the performance 
of what they considered religious ceremonies, 
which were intended to propitiate the supernat- 
ural powers of the earth and of the air. When 
they reached the Strymon, where, it will be rec- 
ollected, a bridge had been previously built, so 
as to be ready for the army when it should ar- 
rive, they offered a sacrifice of five white horses 
to the river. In the same region, too, they 
halted at a place called the Nine Ways, where 
Xerxes resolved to offer a human sacrifice to a 
certain god whom the Persians believed to re- 
side in the interior of the earth. The mode of 
sacrificing to this god was to bury the wretched 



148 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Arrival at the canal. Death of the engineer. 

victims alive. The Persians seized, according- 
ly, by Xerxes's orders, nine young men and 
nine girls from among the people of the coun- 
try, and buried them alive ! 

Marching slowly on in this manner, the army 
at length reached the point upon the coast 
where the canal had been cut across the isth- 
mus of Mount Athos. The town which was 
nearest to this spot was Acanthus, the situa- 
tion of which, together with that of the canal, 
will be found upon the map. The fleet arrived 
at this point by sea nearly at the same time 
with the army coming by land. Xerxes exam- 
ined the canal, and was extremely well satisfied 
with its construction. He commended the chief 
engineer, whose name was Artachsees, in the 
hio^hest terras, for the successful manner in 
which he had executed the work, and rendered 
him very distinguished honors. 

It unfortunately happened," however, that, a 
few days after the arrival of the fleet and the 
army at the canal, and before the fleet had 
commenced the passage of it, that Artachsees 
died. The king considered this event as a se- 
rious calamity to him, as he expected that oth- 
er occasions would arrive on which he would 
have occasion to avail himself of the engineer's 



B.C. 480.] Review of the Troops. 149 

Burial of the engineer. A grand feast. 

talents and skill. He ordered preparations to 
be made for a most magnificent burial, and the 
body was in due time deposited in the grave 
with imposing funeral solemnities. A very 
splendid monument, too, was raised upon the 
spot, which employed, for some time, all the 
mechanical force of the army in its erection. 

While Xerxes remained at Acanthus, he re- 
quired the people of the neighboring country to 
entertain his army at a grand feast, the cost of 
which totally ruined them. Not only was all 
the food of the vicinity consumed, but all the 
means and resources of the inhabitants, of ev- 
ery kind, were exhausted in the additional sup- 
plies which they had to procure from the sur- 
rounding regions. At this feast the army in 
general ate, seated in groups upon the ground, 
in the open air ; but for Xerxes and the nobles 
of the court a great pavilion was built, where 
tables were spread, and vessels and furniture of 
silver and gold, suitable to the dignity of the 
occasion, were provided. Almost all the prop- 
erty which the people of the region had accu- 
mulated by years of patient industry was con- 
sumed at once in furnishing the vast amount 
of food which was required for this feast, and 
the gold and silver plate which was to be used 



150 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Scene of revelry. Desolation and depopulation of the country. 

in the pavilion. During the entertainment, the 
inhabitants of the country waited upon their 
exacting and insatiable guests until they were 
utterly exhausted by the fatigues of the service. 
When, at length, the feast was ended, and 
Xerxes and his company left the pavilion, the 
vast assembly outside broke up in disorder, pull- 
ed the pavilion to pieces, plundered the tables 
of the gold and silver plate, and departed to 
their several encampments, leaving nothing be- 
hind them. 

The inhabitants of the country were so com- 
pletely impoverished and ruined by these exac- 
tions, that those who were not impressed into 
Xerxes's service and compelled to follow his 
army, abandoned their homes, and roamed away 
in the hope of finding elsewhere the means of 
subsistence which it was no longer possible to 
obtain on their own lands ; and thus, when 
Xerxes at last gave orders to the fleet to pass 
through the canal, and to his army to resume 
its march, he left the whole region utterly de- 
populated and desolate. 

fLe, went on to Therma, a port situated on 
the northvyestern corner of the ^gean Sea, 
which was the last of his places of rendezvous 
before his actual advance jnto Greece. 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 151 



The Greeks. The two prominent states of Greece. 



Chapter VII. 

The Preparations of the Greeks 
FOR Defense. 

"V^TE must now leave, for a time, the oper- 
" ' ations of Xerxes and his army, and turn 
our attention to the Greeks, and to the prepar- 
ations which they were making to meet the 
emergency. 

The two states of Greece which were most 
prominent in the transactions connected with 
the invasion of Xerxes were Athens and Spar- 
ta. By referring to the map, Athens will be 
found to have been situated upon a promontory 
just without the Peloponnesus, while Sparta, 
on the other hand, was in the center of a valley 
which lay in the southern part of the peninsula. 
Each of these cities was the center and strong- 
hold of a small but very energetic and power- 
ful commonwealth. The two states were en- 
tirely independent of each other, and each had 
its own peculiar system of government, of usag- 
es, and of laws. These systems, and, in fact, 
the characters of the two communities, in all 
respects, were extremely dissimilar. 



X. 



152 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Greek kings. The two kings of Sparta. 

Both these states, though in name republics, 
had certain magistrates, called commonly, in 
history, kings. These kings were, however, in 
fact, only military chieftains, commanders of 
the armies rather than sovereign rulers of the 
state. The name by which such a chieftain 
was actually called by the people themselves, 
in those days, was tyr annus ^ the name from 
which our word tyrant is derived. As, how- 
ever, the word tyrannus had none of that op- 
probrious import which is associated with its 
English derivative, the latter is not now a suit- 
able substitute for the former. Historians, 
therefore, commonly use the word king instead, 
though that word does not properly express the 
idea. They were commanders, chieftains, he- 
reditary generals, but not strictly kings. We 
shall, however, often call them kings, in these 
narratives, in conformity with the general usage. 
Demaratus, who had fled from Sparta to seek 
refuge with Darius, and who was now accom- 
panying Xerxes on his march to Greece, was 
one of these kings. 

It was a peculiarity in the constitution of 
Sparta that, from a very early period of its his- 
tory, there had been always two kings, who had 
held the supreme command in conjunction with 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 153 



Origin of the custom of two kings. The twins. 

each other, like the Roman consuls in later 
times. This custom was sustained partly by 
the idea that by this division of the executive 
power of the state, the exercise of the power 
was less likely to become despotic or tyrannic- 
al. It had its origin, however, according to the 
ancient legends, in the following singular oc- 
currences : 

At a very early period in the history of Spar- 
ta, when the people had always been accus- 
tomed, like other states, to have one prince or 
chieftain, a certain prince died, leaving his wife, 
whose name was Argia, and two infant chil- 
dren, as his survivors. The children were twins, 
and the father had died almost immediately aft- 
er they were born. Now the office of king was 
in a certain sense hereditary, and yet not abso- 
lutely so ; for the people were accustomed to 
assemble on the death of the king, and determ- 
ine who should be his successor, choosing al- 
ways, however, the oldest son of the former 
monarch, unless there was some very extraor- 
dinary and imperious reason for not doing so. 
In this case they decided, as usual, that the old- 
est son should be king. 

But here a very serious difficulty arose, which 
was, to determine which of the twins was the 



154 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The Delphic oracle consulted. Plan for ascertainiiig the eldest 

oldest son. They resembled each other so close- 
ly that no stranger could distinguish one from 
the other at all. The mother said that she 
could not distinguish them, and that she did 
not know which was the first-born. This was 
not strictly true ; for she did, in fact, know, 
and only denied her power to decide the ques- 
tion because she wished to have both of her 
children kings. 

In this perplexity the Spartans sent to the 
oracle at Delphi to know what they were to do. 
The oracle gave, as usual, an ambiguous and 
unsatisfactory response. It directed the people 
to make both the children kings, but to render 
the highest honors to the first-born. When 
this answer was reported at Sparta, it only in- 
creased the difficulty ; for how were they to 
render peculiar honors to the first-born unless 
they could ascertain which the first-born was ? 

In this dilemma, some person suggested to 
the magistrates that perhaps Argia really knew 
which was the eldest child, and that if so, by 
watching her, to see whether she washed and 
fed one, uniformly, before the other, or gave it 
precedence in any other way, by which her la- 
tent maternal instinct or partiality might ap- 
pear, the question might possibly be determin- 



B.C.480.] The Greeks. 155 

Civil disseneions. Two lines established. 



ed. This plan was accordingly adopted. The 
magistrates contrived means to place a servant 
maid in the house to watch the mother in the 
way proposed, and the result was that the true 
order of birth was revealed. From that time 
forward, while they were both considered as 
princes, the one now supposed to be the first- 
born took precedence of the other. 

When, however, the children arrived at an 
ao^e to assume the exercise of the £:overnmental 
power, as there was no perceptible difference 
between them in age, or strength, or accom- 
plishments, the one who had been decided to 
be the younger was little disposed to submit to 
the other. Each had his friends and adherents, 
parties were formed, and a long and angry civil 
dissension ensued. In the end the question was 
compromised, the command was divided, and 
the system of having two chief magistrates be- 
came gradually established, the power descend- 
ing in two lines, from father to son, through 
many generations. Of course there was per- 
petual jealousy and dissension, and often open 
and terrible conflicts, between these two rival 
lines. 

The Spartans were an agricultural people, 
cultivating the valley in the southeastern part 



156 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Character of the Spartans. Their lofty spirit. 

of the Peloponnesus, the waters of which were 
collected and conveyed to the sea by the River 
Eurotas and its branches. They lived in the 
plainest possible manner, and prided themselves 
on the stern and stoical resolution with which 
they rejected all the refinements and luxuries 
of society. Courage, hardihood, indifference to 
life, and the power to endure without a mur- 
mur the most severe and protracted sufferings, 
were the qualities which they valued. They 
despised wealth just as other nations despise 
effeminacy and foppery. Their laws discour- 
aged commerce, lest it should make some of the 
people rich. Their clothes were scanty and 
plain, their houses were comfortless, their food 
was a coarse bread, hard and brown, and their 
money was of iron. With all this, however, 
they were the most ferocious and terrible sol- 
diers in the world. 

They were, moreover, with all their plain- 
ness of manners and of life, of a very proud and 
lofty spirit. All agricultural toil, and every 
other species of manual labor in their state, were 
performed by a servile peasantry, while the free 
citizens, whose profession was exclusively that 
of arms, were as aristocratic and exalted in soul 
as any nobles on earth. People are sometimes, 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 157 

The Athenians. The city of Athens. 

in our day, when money is so much valued, 
proud, notwithstanding their poverty. The 
Spartans were proud of their poverty itself. 
They could be rich if they chose, but they de- 
spised riches. They looked down on all the re- 
finements and delicacies of dress and of living 
from an elevation far above them. They look- 
ed down on labor, too, with the same contempt. 
They were yet very nice and particular about 
their dress and military appearance, though ev- 
ery thing pertaining to both was coarse and 
simple, and they had slaves to wait upon them 
even in their campaigns. 

The Athenians were a totally different peo- 
ple. The leading classes in their common- 
wealth were cultivated, intellectual, and refin- 
ed. The city of Athens was renowned for the 
splendor of its architecture, its temples, its cit- 
adels, its statues, and its various public institu- 
tions, which in subsequent times made it the 
great intellectual center of Europe. It was 
populous and wealthy. It had a great com- 
merce and a powerful fleet. The Spartan char- 
acter, in a word, was stern, gloomy, indomita- 
ble, and wholly unadorned. The Athenians 
were rich, intellectual, and refined. The two 
nations were nearly equal in power, and were 
engaged in a perpetual and incessant rivalry. 



158 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Sparta and Athens defy the Persians. Earth and water. 

There were various other states and cities in 
Greece, but Athens and Sparta were at this 
time the most considerable, and they were al- 
together the most resolute and determined in 
their refusal to submit to the Persian sway. 
In fact, so well known and understood was the 
spirit of defiance with which these two powers 
were disposed to regard the Persian invasion, 
that when Xerxes sent his summons demand- 
ing submission, to the other states of Greece, he 
did not send any to these. When Darius in- 
vaded Greece some years before, he had sum- 
moned Athens and Sparta as well as the oth- 
ers, but his demands were indignantly rejected. 
It seems that the custom was for a government 
or a prince, when acknowledging the dominion 
of a superior power, to send, as a token of ter- 
ritorial submission, a little earth and water, 
which was a sort of legal form of giving up pos- 
session of their country to the sovereign who 
claimed it. Accordingly, when Darius sent his 
embassadors into Greece to summon the coun- 
try to surrender, the embassadors, according to 
the usual form, called upon the governments of 
the several states to send earth and water to the 
king. The Athenians, as has been already 
said, indignantly refused to comply with this 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 161 

Spirit of the Spartans. The blank tablets. 

demand. The Spartans, not content with a 
simple refusal, seized the embassadors and 
threw them into a well, telling them, as they 
went down, that if they wanted earth and wa- 
ter for the King of Persia, they might get it 
there. 

The Greeks had obtained some information 
of Xerxes's designs against them before they 
received his summons. The first intelligence 
was communicated to the Spartans by Dema- 
ratus himself, while he was at Susa, in the fol- 
lowing singular manner. It was the custom, 
in those days, to write with a steel point on a 
smooth surface of wax. The wax was spread 
for this purpose on a board or tablet of metal, 
in a very thin stratum, forming a ground upon 
which the letters traced with the point were 
easily legible. Demaratus took two writing- 
tablets such as these, and removing the wax 
from them, he wrote a brief account of the pro- 
posed Persian invasion, by tracing the charac- 
ters upon the surface of the wood or metal it- 
self, beneath ; then, restoring the wax. so as to 
conceal the letters, he sent the two tablets, 
seemingly blank, to Leonidas, king of Sparta. 
The messengers who bore them had other pre- 
texts for their journey, and they had various 

L 



162 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Leonidaa. His wife discovers the writing on the tablets. 

other articles to carry. The Persian guards, 
who stopped and examined the messengers 
from time to time along the route, thought 
nothing of the blank tablets, and so they reach- 
ed Leonidas in safety. 

Leonidas being a blunt, rough soldier, and 
not much accustomed to cunning contrivances 
himself, was not usually much upon the watch 
for them from others, and when he saw no ob- 
vious communication upon the tablets, he threw 
them aside, not knowing what the sending of 
them could mean, and not feeling any strong 
interest in ascertaining. His wife, however — • 
her name was Gorgo — ^had more curiosity. 
There was something mysterious about the af- 
fair, and she wished to solve it. She examined 
the tablets attentively in every part, and at 
length removed cautiously a little of the wax. 
The letters began to appear. Full of excite- 
ment and pleasure, she proceeded with the work 
until the whole cereous coating was removed. 
The result was, that the communication was 
revealed, and Greece received the warning. 

When the Greeks heard that Xerxes was at 
Sardis, they sent three messengers in disguise, 
to ascertain the facts in respect to the Persian 
army assembled there, and, so far as possible, 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 163 

The three spies. Alarm at Athens. 

to learn the plans and designs of the king. 
Notwithstanding all the efforts of these men to 
preserve their concealment and disguise, they 
were discovered, seized, and tortured by the 
Persian officer who took them, until they con- 
fessed that they were spies. The officer was 
about to put them to death, when Xerxes him- 
self received information of the circumstances. 
He forbade the execution, and directed, on the 
other hand, that the men should be conducted 
through all his encampments, and be allowed 
to view and examine every thing. He then 
dismissed them, wdth orders to return to Greece 
and report what they had seen. He thought, 
he said, that the Greeks would be more likely 
to surrender if they knew how immense his 
preparations were for effectually vanquishing 
them if they attempted resistance. 

The city of Athens, being farther north than 
Sparta, would be the one first exposed to dan- 
ger from the invasion, and when the people 
heard of Xerxes's approach, the whole city was 
filled with anxiety and alarm. Some of the in- 
habitants were panic-stricken, and wished to 
submit ; others were enraged, and uttered noth- 
ing but threats and defiance. A thousand dif- 
ferent plans of defense were proposed and eag- 



164 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The Greeks consult the Delphic oracle. The responses. 

erly discussed. At length the government sent 
messengers to the oracle at Delphi, to learn 
what their destiny was to be, and to obtain, if 
possible,. divine direction in respect to the best 
mode. of averting the danger. The messengers 
received an awful response, portending, in wild 
and solemn, though dark and mysterious lan- 
guage, the most dreadful calamities to the ill- 
fated city. The messengers were filled with 
alarm at hearing this reply. One of the inhab- 
itants of Delphi, the city in which the oracle 
was situated, proposed to them to make a sec- 
ond application, in the character of the most 
humble supplicants, and to implore that the or- 
acle would give them some directions in respect 
to the best course for them to pursue in order 
to avoid, or, at least, to mitigate the impending 
danger. They did so, and after a time they 
received an answer, vague, mysterious, and al- 
most unintelligible, but which seemed to denote 
that the safety of the city was connected in 
some manner with Salamis, and with certain, 
" wooden walls," to which the inspired distich 
of the response obscurely alluded. 

The messengers returned to Athens and re- 
ported the answer which they had received. 
The people were puzzled and perplexed in their 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 165 

Various interpretations of the oracle. The Athenian fleet. 

attempts to understand it. It seems that the 
citadel of Athens had been formerly surrounded 
by a wooden palisade. Some thought that this 
was what was referred to by the " wooden 
walls," and that the meaning of the oracle was 
that they must rebuild the palisade, and then 
retreat to the citadel when the Persians should 
approach, and defend themselves there. 

Others conceived that the phrase referred to 
ships, and that the oracle meant to direct them 
to meet their enemies with a fleet upon the sea. 
Salamis, which was also mentioned by the ora- 
cle, was an island not far from Athens, being 
west of the city, between it and the Isthmus of 
Corinth. Those who supposed that by the 
*' wooden walls" was denoted the fleet, thought 
that Salamis might have been alluded to as the 
place near which the great naval battle was to 
be fought. This was the interpretation which 
seemed finally to prevail. 

The Athenians had a fleet of about two hund- 
red galleys. These vessels had been purchased 
and built, some time before this, for the Athe- 
nian government, through the influence of a 
certain public oflicer of high rank and influ- 
ence, named Themistocles. It seems that a 
large sum had accumulated in the public treas- 



166 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Themistocles. Proposed confederation. 

ury, the produce of certain mines belonging to 
the city, and a proposal was made to divide it 
among the citizens, which would have given a 
small sum to each man. Themistocles opposed 
this proposition, and urged instead that the gov- 
ernment should build and equip a fleet with the 
money. This plan was finally adopted. The 
fleet was built, and it was now determined to 
call it into active service to meet and repel the 
Persians, though the naval armament of Xerx- 
es was six times as large. 

The next measure was to establish a confed- 
eration, if possible, of the Grecian states, or at 
least of all those who were willing to combine, 
and thus to form an allied army to resist the 
invader. The smaller states were very gener- 
ally panic-stricken, and had either already sig- 
nified their submission to the Persian rule, or 
were timidly hesitating, in doubt whether it 
would be safer for them to submit to the over- 
whelming force which was advancing against 
them, or to join the Athenians and the Spartans 
in their almost desperate attempts to resist it. 
The Athenians and Spartans settled, for the 
time, their own quarrels, and held a council to 
take the necessary measures for forming a more 
extended confederation. 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 167 

Council of Spartans and Athenians. Embassy to Argos. 

All this took place while Xerxes was slowly 
advancing from Sardis to the Hellespont, and 
from the Hellespont to Doriscus, as described in 
the preceding chapter. 

The council resolved on dispatching an em- 
bassy at once to all the states of Greece, as well 
as to some of the remoter neighboring powers, 
asking them to join the alliance. 

The first Greek city to which these embassa- 
dors came was Argos, which was the capital of 
a kingdom or state lying between Athens and 
Sparta, though within the Peloponnesus. The 
states of Argos and of Sparta, being neighbors, 
had been constantly at war. Argos had recent- 
ly lost six thousand men in a battle with the 
Spartans, and were, consequently, not likely to 
be in a very favorable mood for a treaty of 
friendship and alliance. 

When the embassadors had delivered their 
message, the Argolians replied that they had 
anticipated such a proposal from the time that 
they had heard that Xerxes had commenced his 
march toward Greece, and that they had ap- 
plied, accordingly, to the oracle at Delphi, to 
know what it would be best for them to do in 
case the proposal were made. The answer of 
the oracle had been, they said, unfavorable to 



168 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The Argives reject the propositions of the Spartans. 

their entering into an alliance with the Greeks. 
They were willing, however, they added, not- 
withstanding this, to enter into an alliance, of- 
fensive and defensive, with the Spartans, for 
thirty years, on condition that they should 
themselves have the command of half the Pelo- 
ponnesian troops. They were entitled to the 
command of the whole, being, as they contend- 
ed, the superior nation in rank, but they would 
waive their just claim, and be satisfied with 
half, if the Spartans would agree to that ar- 
rangement. 

The Spartans replied that they could not 
agree to those conditions. They were them- 
selves, they said, the superior nation in rank, 
and entitled to the whole command ; and as 
they had two kings, and Argos but one, there 
was a double difficulty in complying with the 
Argive demand. They could not surrender one 
half of the command without depriving one of 
their kings of his rightful power. 

Thus the proposed alliance failed entirely, 
the people of Argos saying that they would as 
willingly submit to the dominion of Xerxes as 
to the insolent demands and assumptions of su- 
periority made by the government of Sparta. 

The embassadors, among other countries 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 169 

Embassy to Sicily. Demands of Gelon. 

which they visited in their attempts to obtain 
alliance and aid, went to Sicily. Gelon was 
the King of Sicily, and Syracuse was his cap- 
ital. Here the same difficulty occurred which 
had broken up the negotiations at Argos. The 
embassadors, when they arrived at Syracuse, 
represented to Gelon that, if the Persians sub- 
dued Greece, they would come to Sicily next, 
and that it was better for him and for his coun- 
trymen that they should meet the enemy while 
he was still at a distance, rather than to wait 
until he came near. Gelon admitted the just- 
ice of this reasoning, and said that he would 
furnish a large force, both of ships and men, for 
carrying on the war, provided that he might 
have the command of the combined army. To 
this, of course, the Spartans would not agree. 
He then asked that he might command the 
fleet, on condition of giving up his claim to the 
land forces. This proposition the Athenian em- 
bassadors rejected, saying to Gelon that what 
they were in need of, and came to him to obtain, 
was a supply of troops, not of leaders. The 
Athenians, they said, were to command the 
fleet, being not only the most ancient nation of 
Greece, but also the most immediately exposed 
to the invasion, so that they were doubly enti- 



170 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The embassadors go to Corcyra. Thessaly. 

tied to be considered as the principals and lead- 
ers in the war. 

Gelon then told the embassadors that, since 
they wished to obtain every thing and to con- 
cede nothing, they had better leave his domin- 
ions without delay, and report to their country- 
men that they had nothing to expect from 
Sicily. 

The embassadors went then to Corcyra, a 
large island on the western coast of Greece, in 
the Adriatic Sea. It is now called Corfu. 
Here they seemed to meet with their first suc- 
cess. The people of Corcyra acceded to the 
proposals made to them, and promised at once 
to equip and man their fleet, and send it round 
into the ^gean Sea. They immediately en- 
gaged in the work, and seemed to be honestly 
intent on fulfilling their promises. They were, 
however, in fact, only pretending. They were 
really undecided which cause to espouse, the 
Greek or the Persian, and kept their promised 
squadron back by means of various delays, un- 
til its aid was no longer needed. 

But the most important of all these negotia- 
tions of the Athenians and Spartans with the 
neighboring states were those opened with Thes- 
saly. Thessaly was a kingdom in the northern 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 171 

The River Peneus. The Vale of Tempe. 

part of Greece. It was, therefore, the territory 
which the Persian armies would first enter, on 
turning the northwestern corner of the ^gean 
Sea. There were, moreover, certain points in 
its geographical position, and in the physical 
conformation of the country, that gave it a pe- 
culiar importance in respect to the approaching 
conflict. 

By referring to the map placed at the com- 
mencement of the fifth chapter, it will be seen 
that Thessaly was a vast valley, surrounded on 
all sides by mountainous land, and drained by 
the River Peneus and its branches. The Pe- 
neus flows eastwardly to the ^gean Sea, and 
escapes from the great valley through a narrow 
and romantic pass lying between the Mountains 
Olympus and Ossa. This pass was called in 
ancient times the Olympic Straits, and a part 
of it formed a romantic and beautiful glen call- 
ed the Vale of Tempe. There was a road 
through this pass, which was the only access 
by which Thessaly could be entered from the 
eastward. 

To the south of the Vale of Tempe, the 
mountains, as will appear from the map, crowd- 
ed so hard upon the sea as not to allow any 
passage to the eastward of them. The natural 



172 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Straits of Thermopylae. Question to be decided. 

route of Xerxes, therefore, in descending into 
Greece, would be to come down along the coast 
until he reached the mouth of the Peneus, and 
then, following the river up through the Vale 
of Tempo into Thessaly, to pass down toward 
the Peloponnesus on the western side of Ossa 
and Pelion, and of the other mountains near the 
sea. If he could get through the Olympic 
Straits and the Vale of Tempe, the way would 
be open and unobstructed until he should reach 
the southern frontier of Thessaly, where there 
was another narrow pass leading fron^ Thessaly 
into Greece. This last defile was close to the 
sea, and was called the Straits of Thermopylae. 

Thus Xerxes and his hosts, in continuing 
their march to the southward, must necessarily 
traverse Thessaly, and in doing so they would 
have two narrow and dangerous defiles to pass : 
one at Mount Olympus, to get into the coun- 
try, and the other at Thermopylae, to get out 
of it. It consequently became a point of great 
importance to the Greeks to determine at which 
of these two passes they should make their 
stand against the torrent which was coming 
down upon them. 

This question would, of course, depend very 
much upon the disposition of Thessaly herself. 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 173 

Messengers from Thessaly. Negotiations. 

'The government of that country, understanding 
the critical situation in which they were placed, 
had not waited for the Athenians and Spartans 
to send embassadors to them, but, at a very 
early period of the war — before, in fact, Xerxes 
had yet crossed the Hellespont, had sent mes- 
sengers to Athens to concert some plan of action. 
These messengers were to say to the Athenians 
that the government of Thessaly were expect- 
ing every day to receive a summons from Xerx- 
es, and that they must speedily decide what 
they were to do ; that they themselves were 
very unwilling to submit to him, but they 
could not undertake to make a stand against 
his immense host alone ; that the southern 
Greeks might include Thessaly in their plan of 
defense, or exclude it, just as they thought best. 
If they decided to include it, then they must 
make a stand at the Olympic Straits, that is, 
at the pass between Olympus and Ossa ; and to 
do that, it would be necessary to send a strong 
force immediately to take possession of the pass. 
If, on the contrary, they decided not to defend 
Thessaly, then the pass of Thermopylae would, 
be the point at which they must make their 
stand, and in that case Thessaly must be at 
liberty to submit on the first Persian summons. 



174 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Decision to defend the -Olympic Straits. Sailing of the fleet. 

The Greeks, after consultation on the sub-- 
ject, decided that it would be best for them to 
defend Thessaly, and to take their stand, ac- 
cordingly, at the Straits of Olympus. They 
immediately put a large force on board their 
fleet, armed and equipped for the expedition. 
This was at the time when Xerxes was just 
about crossing the Hellespont. The fleet sail- 
ed from the port of Athens, passed up through 
the narrow strait called Euripus, lying between 
the island of Euboea and the main land, and 
finally landed at a favorable point of disembark- 
ation, south of Thessaly. From this point the 
forces marched to the northward until they 
reached the Peneus, and then established them- 
selves at the narrowest part of the passage be- 
tween the mountains, strengthened their posi- 
tion there as much as possible, and awaited the 
coming of the enemy. The amount of the force 
was ten thousand men. 

They had not been here many days before a 
messenger came to them from the King of Mac- 
edon, which country, it will be seen, lies imme- 
diately north of Thessaly, earnestly dissuading 
them from attempting to make a stand at the 
Vale of Tempe. Xerxes was coming on, he 
said, with an immense and overwhelming force. 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 175 

Advice of the King of Macedon. The Greeks fall back to ITiermopylae. 

one against which it would be utterly impossi- 
ble for them to make good their defense at such 
a point as that. It would be far better for them 
to fall back to Thermopylse, which, being a nar- 
rower and more rugged pass, could be more 
easily defended. 

Besides this, the messenger said that it was 
possible for Xerxes to enter Thessaly without 
going through the Vale of Tempe at all. The 
country between Thessaly and Macedon was 
mountainous, but it was not impassable, and 
Xerxes would very probably come by that way. 
The only security, therefore, for the Greeks, 
would be to fall back and intrench themselves 
at Thermopylse. Nor was there any time to 
be lost. Xerxes was crossing the Hellespont, 
and the whole country was full of excitement 
and terror. 

The Greeks determined to act on this advice. 
They broke up their encampment at the Olym- 
pic Straits, and, retreating to the southward, 
established themselves at Thermopylae, to await 
there the coming of the conqueror. The peo- 
ple of Thessaly then surrendered to Xerxes as 
soon as they received his summons. 

Xerxes, from his encampment at Therma, 
where we left him at the close of the last chap- 



176 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes visits Theesaly. Beautiful rural scene. 

ter, saw the peaks of Olympus and Ossa in the 
southern horizon. They were distant perhaps 
fifty miles from where he stood. He inquired 
about them, and was told that the River Pene- 
us flowed between them to the sea, and that 
through the same defile there lay the main en- 
trance to Thessaly. He had previously de- 
termined to march his army round the other 
way, as the King of Macedon had suggested, 
but he said that he should like to see this de- 
file. So he ordered a swift Sidonian galley to 
be prepared, and, taking with him suitable 
guides, and a fleet of other vessels in attend- 
ance on his galley, he sailed to the mouth of 
the Peneus, and, entering that river, he ascend- 
ed it until he came to the defile. 

Seen from any of the lower elevations which 
projected from the bases of the mountains at 
the head of this defile, Thessaly lay spread out 
before the eye as one vast valley — level, verd- 
ant, fertile, and bounded by distant groups and 
ranges of mountains, which formed a blue and 
beautiful horizon on every side. Through the 
midst of this scene of rural loveliness the Pe- 
neus, with its countless branches, gracefully 
meandered, gathering the water from every part 
of the valley, and then pouring it forth in a deep 



B.C. 480.] The Greeks. 177 

Conversation of Xerxes at the Olympic Pass. 

and calm current through the gap in the mount- 
ains at the observer's feet. Xerxes asked his 
guides if it would be possible to find any other 
place where the waters of the Peneus could be 
conducted to the sea. They replied that it 
would not be, for the valley was bounded on 
every side by ranges of mountainous land. 

" Then," said Xerxes, '' the Thessalians were 
wise in submitting at once to my summons ; 
for, if they had not done so, I would have rais- 
ed a vast embankment across the valley here, 
and thus stopped the river, turned their country 
into a lake, and drowned them all." 

M 



178 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Advance of the army. Sailing of the fleet. 



Chapter VIII. 

The Advance ofXerxes into Greece. 

iROM Therma — the last of the great sta- 
tions at which the Persian army halted be- 
fore its final descent upon Greece — the army 
commenced its march, and the fleet set sail, 
nearly at the same time, which was early in the 
summer. The army advanced slowly, meeting 
with the usual difficulties and delays, but with- 
out encountering any special or extraordinary 
occurrences, until, after having passed through 
Macedon into Thessaly, and through Thessaly 
to the northern frontier of Phocis, they began 
to approach the Straits of Thermopylae. What 
took place at Thermopylae will be made the 
subject of the next chapter. The movements 
of the fleet are to be narrated in this. 

In order distinctly to understand these move- 
ments, it is necessary that the reader should 
first have a clear conception of the geographical 
conformation of the coasts and seas along which 
the path of the expedition lay. By referring to 
the map of Greece, we shall see that the course 
which the fleet would naturally take from Ther- 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 179 

Sciathus. EuucBa. Straits of Artemisiiim and Euripus. 

ma to the southeastward, along the coast, was 
unobstructed and clear for about a hundred 
miles. We then come to a group of four isl- 
ands, extending in a range at right angles to the 
coast. The only one of these islands with 
which we have particularly to do in this history 
is the innermost of them, which was named 
Sciathus. Opposite to these islands the line of 
the coast, having passed around the point of a 
mountainous and rocky promontory called Mag- 
nesia, turns suddenly to the westward, and runs 
in that direction for about thirty miles, when it 
again turns to the southward and eastward as 
before. In the sort of corner thus cut off by 
the deflection of the coast lies the long island of 
Euboea, which may be considered, in fact, as 
almost a continuation of the continent, as it is 
a part of the same conformation of country, and 
is separated from the main land only by sub- 
merged valleys on the north and on the east. 
Into these sunken valleys the sea of course 
flows, forming straits or channels. The one on 
the north was, in ancient times, called Artemis- 
ium, and the one on the west, at its narrowest 
point, Euripus. All these islands and coasts 
were high and picturesque. They were also, 
ill the days of Xerxes, densely populated, and 



180 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Attica. Saronic Gulf. Island of Salamis. 

adorned profusely with temples, citadels, and 
towns. 

On passing the southernmost extremity of 
the island of Euboea, and turning to the west- 
ward, we come to a promontory of the main 
land, which constituted Attica, and in the mid- 
dle of which the city of Athens was situated. 
Beyond this is a capacious gulf, called the Sa- 
ronian Gulf. It lies between Attica and the 
Peloponnesus. In the middle of the Saronian 
Gulf lies the island of ^gina, and in the north- 
ern part of it the island of Salamis. The prog- 
ress of the Persian fleet was from Therma 
down the coast to Sciathus, thence along the 
shores of Euboea to its southern point, and so 
round into the Saronian Gulf to the island of 
Salamis. The distance of this voyage was per- 
haps two hundred and fifty miles. In accom- 
plishing it the fleet encountered many dangers, 
and met with a variety of incidents and events, 
which we shall now proceed to describe. 

The country, of course, was every where in 
a state of the greatest excitement and terror. 
The immense army was slowly coming down 
by land, and the fleet, scarcely less terrible, 
since its descents upon the coast would be so 
fearfully sudden and overwhelming when they 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 181 

Excitement of the counti-y. Signals. Sentinels. 

were made, was advancing by sea. The in- 
habitants of the country were consequently in 
a state of extreme agitation. The sick and the 
infirm, who were, of course, utterly helpless in 
such a danger, exhibited every where the spec- 
tacle of silent dismay. Mothers, wives, maid- 
ens, and children, on the other hand, were wild 
with excitement and terror. The men, too full 
of passion to fear, or too full of pride to allow 
their fears to be seen, were gathering in arms, 
or hurrying to and fro with intelligence, or mak- 
ing hasty arrangements to remove their wives 
and children from the scenes of cruel suffering 
which were to ensue. They stationed watch- 
men on the hills to give warning of the approach 
of the enemy. They agreed upon signals, and 
raised piles of wood for beacon fires on every 
commanding elevation along the coast ; while 
all the roads leading from the threatened prov- 
inces to other regions more remote from the 
danger were covered with flying parties, en- 
deavoring to make their escape, and carrying, 
wearily and in sorrow, whatever they valued 
most and were most anxious to save. Mothers 
bore their children, men their gold and silver, 
and sisters aided their sick or feeble brothers to 
sustain the toil and terror of the flight. 



182 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Movement of the fleet. The ten reconnoitering galleys. 

All this time Xerxes was sitting in his war 
ohariotj in the midst of his advancing army, 
full of exultation, happiness, and pride at the 
thoughts of the vast harvest of glory which all 
this panic and suffering were bringing him in. 

The fleet, at length — which was under the 
command of Xerxes's brothers and cousins, 
whom he had appointed the admirals of it — be- 
gan to move down the coast from Therma, with 
the intention of first sweeping the seas clear of 
any naval force which the Greeks might have 
sent forward there to act against them, and then 
of landing upon some point on the coast, wher- 
ever they could do so most advantageously for 
co-operation with the army on the land. The 
advance of the ships was necessarily slow. So 
immense a flotilla could not have been other- 
wise kept together. The admirals, however, 
selected ten of the swiftest of the galleys, and, 
after manning and arming them in the most 
perfect manner, sent them forward to reconnoi- 
ter. The ten galleys were ordered to advance 
rapidly, but with the greatest circumspection. 
They were not to incur any needless danger, 
but, if they met with any detached ships of the 
enemy, they were to capture them, if possible. 
They were, moreover, to be constantly on the 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 183 

Gruard-ships captured. Barbarous ceremony. 

alert, to observe every thing, and to send back 
to the fleet all important intelligence which 
they could obtain. 

The ten galleys went on without observing 
any thing remarkable until they reached the 
island of Sciathus. Here they came in sight 
of three Greek ships, a sort of advanced guard, 
which had been stationed there to watch the 
movements of the enemy. 

The Greek galleys immediately hoisted their 
anchors and fled ; the Persian galleys manned 
their oars, and pressed on after them. 

They overtook one of the guard-ships very 
soon, and, after a short conflict, they succeeded 
in capturing it. The Persians made prisoners 
of the officers and crew, and then, selecting 
from among them the fairest and most noble- 
looking man, just as they would have selected 
a bullock from a herd, they sacrificed him to 
one of their deities on the prow of the captured 
ship. This was a religious ceremony, intend- 
ed to signalize and sanctify their victory. 

The second vessel they also overtook and cap- 
tured. The crew of this ship were easily sub- 
dued, as the overwhelming superiority of their 
enemies appeared to convince them that all re- 
sistance was hopeless, and to plunge them into 



184 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

A heroic Greek. One crew escape. 

despair. There was one man, however, who, it 
seems, could not be conquered. He fought like 
a tiger to the last, and only ceased to deal his 
furious thrusts and blows at the enemies that 
surrounded him when, after being entirely cov- 
ered with wounds, he fell faint and nearly life- 
less upon the bloody deck. When the conflict 
with him was thus ended, the murderous hos- 
tility of his enemies seemed suddenly to be 
changed into pity for his sufferings and admi- 
ration of his valor. They gathered around 
him, bathed and bound up his wounds, gave 
him cordials, and at length restored him to life. 
Finally, when the detachment returned to the 
fleet, some days afterward, they carried this 
man with them, and presented him to the com- 
manders as a hero worthy of the highest admi- 
ration and honor. The rest of the crew were 
made slaves. 

The third of the Greek guard-ships contrived 
to escape, or, rather, the crew escaped, while 
the vessel itself was taken. This ship, in its 
flight, had gone toward the north, and the crew 
at last succeeded in running it on shore on the 
coast of Thessaly, so as to escape, themselves, 
by abandoning the vessel to the enemy. The 
ofiicers and crew, thus escaping to the shore, 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 185 

The alarm spread. Return of the Persian galleys. 

went through Thessaly into Greece, spreading 
the tidings every where that the Persians were 
at hand. This intelligence was communicated, 
also, along the coast, by beacon fires which the 
people of Sciathus built upon the heights of the 
island as a signal, to give the alarm to the coun- 
try southward of them, according to the pre- 
concerted plan. The alarm was communicat- 
ed by other fires built on other heights, and sen- 
tinels were stationed on every commanding em- 
inence on the highlands of EubcEa toward the 
south, to watch for the first appearance of the 
enemy. 

The Persian galleys that had been sent for- 
ward having taken the three Greek guard-ships, 
and finding the sea before them now clear of 
all appearances of an enemy, concluded to re- 
turn to the fleet with their prizes and their re- 
port. They had been directed, when they were 
dispatched from the fleet, to lay up a monu- 
ment of stones at the furthest point which they 
should reach in their cruise : a measure often 
resorted to in similar cases, by way of furnish- 
ing proof that a party thus sent forward have 
really advanced as far as they pretend on their 
return. The Persian detachment had actually 
brought the stones for the erection of their land- 



186 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The monument of stones. Progi-ess of the fleet. 

mark with them in one of their galleys. The 
galley containing the stones, and two others to 
aid it, pushed on beyond Sciathus to a small 
rooky islet standing in a conspicuous position 
in the sea, and there they built their monument 
or cairn. The detachment then returned to 
meet the fleet. The time occupied by this 
whole expedition was eleven days. 

The fleet was, in the mean time, coming 
down along the coast of Magnesia. The whole 
company of ships had advanced safely and pros- 
perously thus far, but now a great calamity 
Was about to befall them — the first of the series 
of disasters by which the expedition was ulti- 
mately ruined. It was a storm at sea. 

The fleet had drawn up for the night in a 
long and shallow bay on the coast. There was 
a rocky promontory at one end of this bay and 
a cape on the other, with a long beach between 
them. It was a very good place of refuge and 
rest for the night in calm weather, but such a 
bay afforded very little shelter against a tem- 
pestuous wind, or even against the surf and 
swell of the sea, which were sometimes produced 
by a distant storm. When the fleet entered 
this bay in the evening, the sea was calm and 
the sky serene. The commanders expected to 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 187 

The fleet anchors in a bay. A coming sterna 

remain there for the night, and to proceed on 
the voyage on the following day. 

The bay was not sufficiently extensive to al- 
low of the drawing up of so large a fleet in a 
single line along the shore. The ships were ac- 
cordingly arranged in several lines, eight in all. 
The innermost of these lines was close to the 
shore ; the others were at different distances 
from it, and every separate ship was held to the 
place assigned it by its anchors. In this po- 
sition the fleet passed the night in safety, but 
before morning there were indications of a storm. 
The sky looked wild and lurid. A heavy swell 
came rolling in from the offing. The wind be- 
gan to rise, and to blow in fitful gusts. Its di- 
rection was from the eastward, so that its ten- 
dency was to drive the fleet upon the shore. 
The seamen were anxious and afraid, and the 
commanders of the several ships began to de- 
vise, each for his own vessel, the best means of 
safety. Some, whose vessels were small, drew 
them up upon the sand, above the reach of 
the swell. Others strengthened the anchoring 
tackle, or added new anchors to those already 
down. Others raised their anchors altogether, 
and attempted to row their galleys away, up or 
down the coast, in hope of finding some better 



188 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The storm rages. Destruction of many vessels. 

place of shelter. Thus all was excitement and 
confusion in the fleet, through the eager efforts 
made by every separate crew to escape the im- 
pending danger. 

In the mean time, the storm came on apace. 
The rising and roughening sea made the oars 
useless, and the wind howled frightfully through 
the cordage and the rigging. The galleys soon 
began to be forced away from their moorings. 
Some were driven upon the beach and dashed 
to pieces by the waves. Some were wrecked 
on the rocks at one or the other of the project- 
ing points which bounded the bay on either hand. 
Some foundered at their place of anchorage. 
Vast numbers of men were drowned. Those 
who escaped to the shore were in hourly dread 
of an attack from the inhabitants of the coun- 
try. To save themselves, if possible, from this 
danger, they dragged up the fragments of the 
wrecked vessels upon the beach, and built a 
fort with them on the shore. Here they in- 
trenched themselves, and then prepared to de- 
fend their lives, armed with the weapons which, 
like the materials for their fort, were washed 
up, from time to time, by the sea. 

The storm continued for three days. It de- 
stroyed about three hundred galleys, besides an 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 189 

Plunder of the wrecks. Scyllias, the famous diver. 

immense number of provision transports and 
other smaller vessels. Great numbers of sea- 
men, also, were drowned. The inhabitants of 
the country along the coast enriched themselves 
with the plunder which they obtained from the 
wrecks, and from the treasures, and the gold 
and silver vessels, which continued for some 
time to be driven up upon the beach by the 
waves. The Persians themselves recovered, it 
was said, a great deal of valuable treasure, by 
employing a certain Greek diver, whom they 
had in their fleet, to dive for it after the storm 
was over. This diver, whose name was Scyl- 
lias, was famed far and wide for his power of 
remaining under water. As an instance of 
what they believed him capable of performing, 
they said that when, at a certain period subse- 
quent to these transactions, he determined to 
desert to the Greeks, he accomplished his de- 
sign by diving into the sea from the deck of a 
Persian galley, and coming up again in the 
midst of the Greek fleet, ten miles distant ! 

After three days the storm subsided. The 
Persians then repaired the damages which had 
been sustained, so far as it was now possible to 
repair them, collected what remained of the 
fleet, took the shipwrecked mariners from their 



190 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Dissensions in the Greek fleet. Jealousy of the Athenians. 

rude fortification on the beach., and set sail 
again on their voyage to the southward. 

In the mean time, the Greek fleet had as- 
sembled in the arm of the sea lying north of 
Euboea, and between Euboea and the main 
land. It was an allied fleet, made up of con- 
tributions from various states that had finally 
agreed to come into the confederacy. As is 
usually the case, however, with allied or confed- 
erate forces, they were not well agreed among 
themselves. The Athenians had furnished far 
the greater number of ships, and they consid- 
ered themselves, therefore, entitled to the com- 
mand ; but the other aUies were envious and 
jealous of them on account of that very superi- 
ority of wealth and power which enabled them 
to supply a greater portion of the naval force 
than the rest. They were willing that one of 
the Spartans should command, but they would 
not consent to put themselves under an Athe- 
nian. If an Athenian leader were chosen, they 
would disperse, they said, and the various por- 
ttions of the fleet return to their respective 
homes. 

The Athenians, though burning with resent- 
ment at this unjust declaration, were compelled 
to submit to the necessity of the case. They 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 191 

Situation of the Athenians. Eurybiadee appointed commander. 

could not take the confederates at their word, 
and allow the fleet to be broken up, for the de- 
fense of Athens was the great object for which 
it was assembled. The other states might 
make their peace with the conqueror by sub- 
mission, but the Athenians could not do so. In 
respect to the rest of Greece, Xerxes wished 
only for dominion. In respect to Athens, he 
wished for vengeance. The Athenians had 
burned the Persian city of Sardis, and he had 
determined to give himself no rest until he had 
burned Athens in return. 

It was well understood, therefore, that the 
assembling of the fleet, and giving battle to the 
Persians where they now were, was a plan 
adopted mainly for the defense and benefit of 
the Athenians. The Athenians, accordingly, 
waived their claim to command, secretly resolv- 
ing that, when the war was over, they would 
have their revenge for the insult and injury. 

A Spartan was accordingly appointed com- 
mander of the fleet. His name was Eurybiades. 

Things were in this state when the two fleets 
came in sight of each other in the strait be- 
tween the northern end of Euboea and the main 
land. Fifteen of the Persian galleys, advanc- 
ing incautiously some miles in front of the rest, 



192 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Debates in the Greek council. Dismay of the Eubceans. 

came suddenly upon the Greek fleet, and were 
all captured. The crews were made prisoners 
and sent into Greece. The remainder of the 
fleet entered the strait, and anchored at the east- 
ern extremity of it, sheltered by the promonto- 
ry of Magnesia, which now lay to the north of 
them. 

The Greeks were amazed at the immense 
magnitude of the Persian fleet, and the first 
opinion of the commanders was, that it was 
wholly useless for them to attempt to engage 
them. A council was convened, and, after a 
long and anxious debate, they decided that it 
was best to retire to the southward. The in- 
habitants of Eubcea, who had been already in 
a state of great excitement and terror at the 
near approach of so formidable an enemy, were 
thrown, by this decision of the allies, into a state 
of absolute dismay. It was abandoning them 
to irremediable and hopeless destruction. 

The government of the island immediately 
raised a very large sum of money, and went 
with it to Themistocles, one of the most influ- 
ential of the Athenian leaders, and offered it to 
him if he would contrive any way to persuade 
the commanders of the fleet to remain and give 
the Persians battle where they were. Themis- 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 193 

The Greek leaders bribed. Precautions of the Persians. 

tocles took the money, and agreed to the condi- 
tion. He went with a small part of it — though 
this part was a very considerable sum — to Eu- 
rybiades, the commander-in-chief, and offered it 
to him if he would retain the fleet in its pres- 
ent position. There were some other similar 
offerings made to other influential men, judi- 
ciously selected. All this was done in a very 
private manner, and, of course, Themistocles 
took care to reserve to himself the lion's share 
of the Euboean contribution. The efTect of this 
money in altering the opinions of the naval offi- 
cers was marvelous. A new council was call- 
ed, the former decision was annulled, and the 
Greeks determined to give their enemies battle 
where they were. 

The Persians had not been unmindful of the 
danger that the Greeks might retreat by retir- 
ing through the Euripus, and so escape them. 
In order to prevent this, they secretly sent off a 
fleet of two hundred of their strongest and fleet- 
est galleys, with orders to sail round Eubcea 
and enter the Euripus from the south, so as to 
cut off the retreat of the Greeks in that quar- 
ter. They thought that by this plan the Greek 
fleet would be surrounded, and could have no 
possible mode of escape. They remained, there- 

N 



194 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Designs of the Persians discovered. The Greeks decide to give battle. 

fore, with the principal fleet, at the outer en- 
trance of the northern strait for some days, be- 
fore attacking the Greeks, in order to give time 
for the detachment to pass round the island. 

The Persians sent off the two hundred gal- 
leys with great secrecy, not desiring that the 
Greeks should discover their design of thus in- 
tercepting their retreat. They did discover it, 
however, for this was the occasion on which the 
great diver, Scyllias, made his escape from one 
fleet to the other by swimming under water ten 
miles, and he brought the Greeks the tidings.^ 

The Greeks dispatched a small squadron of 
ships with orders to proceed southward into the 
Euripus, to meet this detachment which the 
Persians sent round ; and, in the mean time, 
they determined themselves to attack the main 
Persian fleet without any delay. Notwithstand- 
ing their absurd dissensions and jealousies, and 
the extent to which the leaders wiere influenced 
by intrigues and bribes, the Greeks always 
evinced an undaunted and indomitable spirit 
when the day of battle came. It was, more- 
over, in this case, exceedingly important to de- 

* There is reason to suppose that Scyllias made his escape 
by night in a boat, managing the circumstances, however, in 
such a way as to cause the story to be circulated that he swam. 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 195 



Euripus and Artemisium. Advance of the Greeks. 



fend the position which they had taken. By- 
referring to the map once more, it will be seen 
that the Euripus was the great highway to 
Athens by sea, as the pass of Thermopylae was 
by land. Thermopylae was west of Artemisi- 
um, where the fleet was now stationed, and not 
many miles from it. The Greek army had 
made its great stand at Thermopylae, and Xerx- 
es was fast coming down the country with all 
his forces to endeavor to force a passage there. 
The Persian fleet, in entering Artemisium, was 
making the same attempt by sea in respect to 
the narrow passage of Euripus ; and for either 
of the two forces, the fleet or the army, to fail 
of making good the defense of its position, with- 
out a desperate effort to do so, would justly be 
considered a base betrayal and abandonment of 
the other. 

The Greeks therefore advanced, one morn- 
ing, to the attack of the Persians, to the utter 
astonishment of the latter, who believed that 
their enemies were insane when they thus saw 
them coming into the jaws, as they thought, of 
certain destruction. Before night, however, 
they were to change their opinions in respect to 
the insanity of their foes. The Greeks pushed 
boldly on into the midst of the Persian fleet, 



196 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The battle. A stormy night. 

where they were soon surrounded. They then 
formed themselves into a circle, with the prows 
of the vessels outward, and the sterns toward the 
center within, and fought in this manner with 
the utmost desperation all the day. With the 
night a storm came on, or, rather, a series of 
thunder-showers and gusts of wind, so severe 
that both fleets were glad to retire from the 
scene of contest. The Persians went back to- 
ward the east, the Greeks to the westward, to- 
ward Thermopylae — each party busy in repair- 
ing their wrecks, taking care of their wounded, 
and saving their vessels from the tempest. It 
was a dreadful night. The Persians, particu- 
larly, spent it in the midst of scenes of horror. 
The wind and the current, it seems, set out- 
ward, toward the sea, and carried the masses 
and fragments of the wrecked vessels, and the 
swollen and ghastly bodies of the dead, in among 
the Persian fleet, and so choked up the surface 
of the water that the oars became entangled 
and useless. The whole mass of seamen in the 
Persian fleet, during this terrible night, were 
panic-stricken and filled with horror. The wind, 
the perpetual thunder, the concussions of the 
vessels with the wrecks and with one another, 
and the heavy shocks of the seas, kept them in 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 197 

Scene of terror. A calm after the storm, 

continual alarm ; and the black and inscrutable 
darkness was rendered the more dreadful, while 
it prevailed, by the hideous spectacle which, at 
ervrery flash of lightning, glared brilliantly upon 
every eye from the wide surface of the sea. 
The shouts and cries of officers vociferating or- 
ders, of wounded men writhing in agony, of 
watch i*nen and sentinels in fear of collisions, 
mingled with the howling wind and roaring 
seas, created a scene of indescribable terror and 
confusion. 

The violence of the sudden gale was still 
greater further out at sea, and the detachment 
of ships which had been sent around Euboea 
was wholly dispersed and destroyed by it. 

The storm was, however, after all, only a se- 
ries of summer evening showers, such as to the 
inhabitants of peaceful dwellings on the land 
have no terror, but only come to clear the sul- 
try atmosphere in the night, and in the morn- 
ing are gone. When the sun rose, according- 
ly, upon the Greeks and Persians on the morn- 
ing after their conflict, the air was calm, the sky 
serene, and the sea as blue and pure as ever. 
The bodies and the wrecks had been floated 
away into the offing. The courage or the fe- 
rocity, whichever we choose to call it, of the 



198 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Terror of the Eubcsans. Their plans. 

combatants, returned, and they renewed the 
conflict. It continued, with varying success, 
for two more days. 

During all this time the inhabitants of the 
island of Euboea were in the greatest distress 
and terror. They watched these dreadful con- 
flicts from the heights, uncertain how the strug- 
gle would end, but fearing lest their defend- 
ers should be beaten, in which case the whole 
force of the Persian fleet would be landed on 
their island, to sweep it with pillage and destruc- 
tion. They soon began to anticipate the worst, 
and, in preparation for it, they removed their 
goods — all that could be removed — -and drove 
their cattle down to the southern part of the 
island, so as to be ready to escape to the main 
land. The Greek commanders, finding that the 
fleet would probably be compelled to retreat in 
the end, sent to them here, recommending that 
they should kill their cattle and eat them, roast- 
ing the flesh at fires which they should kindle 
on the plain. The cattle could not be trans- 
ported, they said, across the channel, and it was 
better that the flying population should be fed, 
than that the food should fall into Persian 
hands. If they would dispose of their cattle in 
this manner, Eurybiades would endeavor, he 



B.C. 480.] Advance into Greece. 199 

The Greeks retire. Inscription on the rocka. 

said, to transport the people themselves and 
their valuable goods across into Attica. 

How many thousand peaceful and happy 
homes were broken up and destroyed forever 
by this ruthless invasion ! 

In the mean time, the Persians, irritated by 
the obstinate resistance of the Greeks, were, on 
the fourth day, preparing for some more vigor- 
ous measures, when they saw a small boat com- 
ing toward the fleet from down the channel. 
It proved to contain a countryman, who came 
to tell them that the Greeks had gone away. 
The whole fleet, he said, had sailed off" to 'the 
southward, and abandoned those seas altogeth- 
er. The Persians did not, at first, believe this 
intelligence. They suspected some ambuscade 
or stratagem. They advanced slowly and cau- 
tiously down the channel. When they had 
gone half down to Thermopylae, they stopped at 
a place called Histisea, where, upon the rocks 
on the shore, they found an inscription address- 
ed to the lonians — who, it will be recollected, 
had been brought by Xerxes as auxiliaries, con- 
trary to the advice of Artabanus — entreating 
them not to fight against their countrymen. 
This inscription was written in large and con- 
spicuous characters on the face of the cliff, so 



200 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The commanders of the Persian fleet summoned to Thermopylae. 

that it could be read by the Ionian seamen as 
they passed in their galleys. 

The fleet anchored at Histisea, the command- 
ers being somewhat uncertain in respect to 
what it was best to do. Their suspense was 
very soon relieved by a messenger from Xerxes, 
who came in a galley up the channel from 
Thermopylae, with the news that Xerxes had 
arrived at Thermopylae, had fought a great bat- 
tle there, defeated the Greeks, and obtained pos- 
session of the pass, and that any of the officers 
of the fleet who chose to do so might come and 
view the battle ground. This intelligence and 
invitation produced, throughout the fleet, a 
scene of the wildest excitement, enthusiasm, 
and joy. All the boats and smaller vessels of 
the fleet were put into requisition to carry the 
officers down. When they arrived at Thermop- 
ylae the tidings all proved true. Xerxes was in 
possession of the pass, and the Greek fleet was 
gone. 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. 201 

The pass of Thermopylae. Its situation. 



Chapter IX. 

The Battle of TnERMOPYLiE. 

fTlHE pass of Thermopylae was not a ravine 
-*- among mountains, but a narrow space be- 
tween mountains and the sea. The mountains 
landward were steep and inaccessible ; the sea 
was shoal. The passage between them was nar- 
row for many miles along the shore, being nar- 
rowest at the ingress and egress. In the middle 
the space was broader. The place was celebra- 
ted for certain warm springs which here issued 
from the rocks, and which had been used in for- 
mer times for baths. 

The position had been considered, long before 
Xerxes's day, a very important one in a military 
point of view, as it was upon the frontier between 
two Greek states that were frequently at war. 
One of these states, of course, was Thessaly. 
The other was Phocis, which lay south of Thes- 
saly. The general boundary between these 
two states was mountainous, and impassable 
for troops, so that each could invade the terri- 
tories of the other only by passing round be- 



202 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Ancient intrenchments. View at Thermopylae. 

tween the mountains and the shore at Ther- 
mopylae. 

The Phooseans, in order to keep the Thessa- 
lians out, had, in former times, built a wall 
across the way, and put up gates there, which 
they strongly fortified. In order still further to 
increase the difficulty of forcing a passage, they 
conducted the water of the warm springs over 
the ground without the wall, in such a way as 
to make the surface continually wet and miry. 
The old wall had now fallen to ruins, but the 
miry ground remained. The place was solitary 
and desolate, and overgrown with a confused 
and wild vegetation. On one side the view ex- 
tended far and wide over the sea, with the high- 
lands of Euboea in the distance, and on the oth- 
er dark and inaccessible mountains rose, cover- 
ed with forests, indented with mysterious and 
unexplored ravines, and frowning in a wild and 
gloomy majesty over the narrow pass way which 
crept along the shore below. 

The Greeks, when they retired from Thessa- 
ly, fell back upon Thermopylae, and established 
themselves there. They had a force variously 
estimated, from three to four thousand men. 
These were from the different states of Greece, 
some within and some without the Peloponne- 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopyl^. 203 

The allied forces. Leonidas the Spartan. 

sus — a few hundred men only being furnished, 
in general, from each state or kingdom. Each 
of these bodies of troops had its own officers, 
though there was one general-in-chief, who com- 
manded the whole. This was Leonidas the 
Spartan. He had brought with him three hund- 
red Spartans, as the quota furnished by that city. 
These men he had specially selected himself, one 
by one, from among the troops of the city, as 
men on whom he could rely. 

It will be seen from the map that Thermopy- 
lae is at some distance from the Isthmus of Cor- 
inth, and that of the states which would be pro- 
tected by making a stand at the pass, some were 
without the isthmus and some within. These 
states, in sending each a few hundred men only 
to ThermopylsB, did not consider that they were 
making their full contribution to the army, but 
only sending forward for the emergency those 
that could be dispatched at once ; and they were 
all making arrangements to supply more troops 
as soon as they could be raised and equipped for 
the service. In the mean time, however, Xerx- 
es and his immense hordes came on faster than 
they had expected, and the news at length came 
to Leonidas, in the pass, that the Persians, with 
one or two millions of men, were at hand, while 



204 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Debate in regard to defending Thermopylse. The decision. 

he had only three or four thousand at Thermop- 
ylse to oppose them. The question arose, What 
was to be done ? 

Those of the Greeks who came from the Pel- 
oponnesus were in favor of abandoning Ther- 
mopylae, and falling back to the isthmus. The 
isthmus, they maintained, was as strong and 
as favorable a position as the place where they 
were; and, by the time they had reached it, 
they would have received great re-enforcements ; 
whereas, with so small a force as they had then 
at command, it was madness to attempt to re- 
sist the Persian millions. This plan, however, 
was strongly opposed by all those Greeks who 
represented countries without the Peloponne- 
sus ; for, by abandoning Thermopylse, and fall- 
ing back to the isthmus, their states would be 
left wholly at the mercy of the enemy. After 
some consultation and debate, it was decided 
to remain at Thermopylse. The troops accord- 
ingly took up their positions in a deliberate and 
formal manner, and, intrenching themselves as 
strongly as possible, began to await the onset 
of the enemy. Leonidas and his three hundred 
were foremost in the defile, so as to be the first 
exposed to the attack. The rest occupied vari- 
ous positions along the passage, except one corps^ 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. 205 

Character of the Spartans. Their pride. 

which was stationed on the mountains above, 
to guard the pass in that direction. This corps 
was from Phocis, which, being the state nearest 
to the scene of conflict, had furnished a larger 
number of soldiers than any other. Their di- 
vision numbered a thousand men. These be- 
ing stationed on the declivity of the mountain, 
left only two or three thousand in the defile 
below. 

From what has been said of the stern and sav- 
age character of the Spartans, one would scarce- 
ly expect in them any indications or displays of 
personal vanity. There was one particular, it 
seems, however, in regard to which they were 
vain, and that was in respect to their hair. They 
wore it very long. In fact, the length of the hair 
was, in their commonwealth, a mark of distinc- 
tion between freemen and slaves. All the ag- 
ricultural and mechanical labors were perform- 
ed, as has already been stated, by the slaves, a 
body which constituted, in fact, the mass of the 
population ; and the Spartan freemen, though 
very stern in their manners, and extremely sim- 
ple and plain in their habits of life, were, it must 
be remembered, as proud and lofty in spirit as 
they were plain and poor. They constituted a 
military aristocracy, and a military aristocracy 



206 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The Spartans adorn themselves for the battle. Approach of Xerxes. 

is always more proud and overbearing than any 
other. 

It must be understood, therefore, that these 
Spartan soldiers were entirely above the per- 
formance of any useful labors ; and while they 
prized, in character, the savage ferocity of the 
tiger, they had a taste, in person, for something 
like his savage beauty too. They were never, 
moreover, more particular and careful in re- 
spect to their personal appearance than when 
they were going into battle. The field of battle 
was their particular theater of display, not only 
of the substantial qualities of strength, fortitude, 
and valor, but also of such personal adornments 
as were consistent with the plainness and sever- 
ity of their attire, and could be appreciated by a 
taste as rude and savage as theirs. They pro- 
ceeded, therefore, when established at their post 
in the throat of the pass, to adorn themselves for 
the approaching battle. 

In the mean time the armies of Xerxes were 
approaching. Xerxes himself, though he did 
not think it possible that the Greeks could have 
a sufficient force to offer him any effectual re- 
sistance, thought it probable that they would at- 
tempt to make a stand at the pass, and, when 
he began to draw near to it, he sent forward a 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopyl^. 207 

The Persian horseman. His observation. 

horseman to reconnoiter the ground. The horse- 
man rode into the pass a little way, until he came 
in sight of the enemy. He stopped upon an em- 
inence to survey the scene, being all ready to 
turn in an instant, and fly at the top of his speed, 
in case he should be pursued. The Spartans 
looked upon him as he stood there, but seemed 
to consider his appearance as a circumstance of 
no moment, and then went on with their avoca- 
tions. The horseman found, as he leisurely ob- 
served them, that there was an intrenchment 
thrown across the straits, and that the Spartans 
were in front of it. There were other forces 
behind, but these the horseman could not see. 
The Spartans were engaged, some of them in 
athletic sports and gymnastic exercises, and the 
rest in nicely arranging their dress, which was 
red and showy in color, though simple and plain 
in form, and in smoothing, adjusting, and curl- 
ing their hair. In fact, they seemed to be, one 
and all, preparing for an entertainment. 

And yet these men were actually preparing 
themselves to be slaughtered, to be butchered, 
one by one, by slow degrees, and in the most hor- 
rible and cruel manner ; and they knew perfect- 
ly well that it was so. The adorning of them- 
selves was for this express and particular end. 



208 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Report of the horseman. Conversation with Demaratus. 

The horseman, when he had attentively no- 
ticed all that was to be seen, rode slowly back 
to Xerxes, and reported the result. The king 
was much amused at hearing such an account 
from his messenger. He sent for Demaratus, 
the Spartan refugee, with whom, the reader 
will recollect, he held a long conversation in 
respect to the Greeks at the close of the great 
review at Doriscus. When Demaratus came, 
Xerxes related to him what the messenger had 
reported. " The Spartans in the pass," said 
he, '' present, in their encampment, the appear- 
ance of being out on a party of pleasure. What 
does it mean ? You will admit now, I suppose, 
that they do not intend to resist us." 

Demaratus shook his head. " Your majesty 
does not know the Greeks," said he, '' and I am 
very much afraid that, if I state what I know 
respecting them, I shall offend you. These ap- 
pearances which your messenger observed indi- 
cate to me that the men he saw were a body of 
Spartans, and that they supposed themselves on 
the eve of a desperate conflict. Those are the 
men, practicing athletic feats, and smoothing and 
adorning their hair, that are the most to be feared 
of all the soldiers of Greece. If you can conquer 
them, you will have nothing beyond to fear." 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Tiiermopyl j^. 209 

Xerxes encamps at the pass. Troops sent into the pass. 

Xerxes thought this opinion of Demaratus 
extremely absurd. He was convinced that the 
party in the pass was some small detachment 
that could not possibly be thinking of serious 
resistance. They would, he was satisfied, now 
that they found that the Persians were at hand, 
immediately retire down the pass, and leave the 
way clear. He advanced, therefore, up to the 
entrance of the pass, encamped there, and wait- 
ed several days for the Greeks to clear the way. 
The Greeks remained quietly in their places, 
paying apparently no attention whatever to the 
impending and threatening presence of their 
formidable foes. 

At length Xerxes concluded that it was time 
for him to act. On the morning, therefore, of 
the fifth day, he called out a detachment of his 
troops, sufficient, as he thought, for the purpose, 
and sent them down the pass, with orders to 
seize all the Greeks that were there, and bring 
them, oMve^ to him. The detachment that he 
sent was a body of Medes, who were considered 
as the best troops in the army, excepting always 
the Immortals, who, as has been before stated, 
were entirely superior to the rest. The Medes, 
however, Xerxes supposed, would find no diffi- 
culty in executing his orders. 

O 



210 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Defeat of the Persian detachment. The Immortals called out 

The detachment marched, accordingly, into 
the pass. In a few hours a spent and breath- 
less messenger came from them, asking for re- 
enforcements. The re-enforcements were sent. 
Toward night a remnant of the whole body came 
back, faint and exhausted with a long and fruit- 
less combat, and bringing many of their wound- 
ed and bleeding comrades with them. The rest 
they had left dead in the defile. 

Xerxes was both astonished and enraged at 
these results. He determined that this trifling 
should continue no longer. He ordered the Im- 
mortals themselves to be called out on the fol- 
lowing morning, and then, placing himself at 
the head of them, he advanced to the vicinity 
of the Greek intrenchments. Here he ordered 
a seat or throne to be placed for him upon an 
eminence, and, taking his seat upon it, prepared 
to witness the conflict. The Greeks, in the 
mean time, calmly arranged themselves on the 
line which they had undertaken to defend, and 
awaited the charge. Upon the ground, on ev- 
ery side, were lying the mangled bodies of the 
Persians slain the day before, some exposed 
fully to view, ghastly and horrid spectacles, 
others trampled down and half buried in the 
mire. 



B.C. 480.J Battle of Tiiermopyl.e. 211 

The Immortals advance to the charge. Valor of the Greeks. 

The Immortals advanced to the attack, but 
they made no impression. Their superior num- 
bers gave them no advantage, on account of the 
narrowness of the defile. The Greeks stood, 
each corps at its own assigned station on the 
line, forming a mass so firm and immovable that 
the charge of the Persians was arrested on en- 
countering it as by a wall. In fact, as the spears 
of the Greeks were longer than those of the Per- 
sians, and their muscular and athletic strength 
and skill were greater, it was found that in the 
desperate conflict which raged, hour after hour, 
along the line, the Persians were continually 
falling, w^hile the Greek ranks continued entire. 
Sometimes the Greeks would retire for a space, 
falling back with the utmost coolness, regular- 
ity, and order ; and then, when the Persians 
pressed on in pursuit, supposing that they w^ere 
gaining the victory, the Greeks w^ould turn so 
soon as they found that the ardor of pursuit had 
thrown the enemies' lines somewhat into confu- 
sion, and, presenting the same firm and terrible 
front as before, would press again upon the of- 
fensive, and cut down their enemies with re- 
doubled slaughter. Xerxes, who witnessed all 
these things from among the group of officers 
around him upon the eminence, was kept con- 



•212 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The Immortals repulsed. Treachery of Ephialtes. 

tinually in a state of excitement and irritation. 
Three times he leaped from his throne, with 
loud exclamations of vexation and rage. 

All, however, was of no avail. "When night 
came the Immortals were compelled to with- 
draw, and leave the Greeks in possession of 
their intrenohments. 

Things continued substantially in this state 
for one or two days longer, when one morning 
a Greek countryman appeared at the tent of 
Xerxes, and asked an audience of the king. He 
had something, he said, of great importance to 
communicate to him. The king ordered him 
to be admitted. The Greek said that his name 
was Ephialtes, and that he came to inform the 
king that there was a secret path leading along 
a wild and hidden chasm in the mountains, by 
which he could guide a body of Persians to the 
summit of the hills overhanging the pass at a 
point below the Greek intrenchment. This 
point being once attained, it would be easy, 
Ephialtes said, for the Persian forces to descend 
into the pass below the Greeks, and thus to sur- 
round them and shut them in, and that the con- 
quest of them would then be easy. The path 
was a secret one, and known to very few. He 
knew it, however, and was willing to conduct a 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. 213 

Joy of Xerxes. Course of the path. 

detachment of troops through it, on condition 
of receiving a suitable reward. 

The king was greatly surprised and delighted 
at this intelligence. He immediately acceded 
to Ephialtes's proposals, and organized a strong 
force to be sent up the path that very night. 

On the north of Thermopylae there was a 
small stream, which came down through a 
chasm in the mountains to the sea. The path 
which Ephialtes was to show commenced here, 
and following the bed of this stream up the 
chasm, it at length turned to the southward 
through a succession of wild and trackless rav- 
ines, till it came out at last on the declivities of 
the mountains near the lower part of the pass, 
at a place where it was possible to descend to 
the defile below. This was the point which the 
thousand Phocseans had been ordered to take 
possession of and guard, when the plan for the 
defense of the pass was first organized. They 
were posted here, not with the idea of repelling 
any attack from the mountains behind them — 
for the existence of the path was wholly un- 
known to them — but only that they might com- 
mand the defile below, and aid in preventing the 
Persians from going through, even if those who 
were in the defile were defeated or slain. 



214 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

A Persian detachment sent up the path. The Phocaeans retreat. 

The Persian detachment toiled all night up 
the steep and dangerous pathway, among rocks, 
chasms, and precipices, frightful by day, and 
now made still more frightful by the gloom of 
the night. They came out at last, in the dawn 
of the morning, into valleys and glens high up 
the declivity of the mountain, and in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the Phocaean encampment. The 
Persians were concealed, as they advanced, by 
the groves and thickets of stunted oaks which 
grew here, but the morning air was so calm 
and still, that the Phocaean sentinels heard the 
noise made by their trampling upon the leaves 
as they came up the glen. The Phocseans im- 
mediately gave the alarm. Both parties were 
completely surprised. The Persians had not 
expected to find a foe at this elevation, and the 
Greeks who had ascended there had supposed 
that all beyond and above them was an impass- 
able and trackless desolation. 

There was a short conflict. The Phocaeans 
were driven off their ground. They retreated 
up the mountain, and toward the southward. 
The Persians decided not to pursue them. On 
the other hand, they descended toward the de- 
file, and took up a position on the lower decliv- 
ities of the mountain, which enabled them to 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. 210 

The Greeks surrounded. Resolution of Leonidas. 

command the pass below : there they paused, 
and awaited Xerxes's orders. 

The Greeks in the defile perceived at once 
that they were now" wholly at the mercy of their 
enemies. They might yet retreat, it is true, 
for the Persian detachment had not yet descend- 
ed to intercept them ; but, if they remained 
where they were, they would, in a few hours, 
be hemmed in by their foes ; and even if they 
could resist, for a little time, the double onset 
which would then be made upon them, their 
supplies would be cut off, and there would be 
nothing before them but immediate starvation. 
They held hurried councils to determine what 
to do. 

There is some doubt as to what took place at 
these councils, though the prevailing testimony 
is, that Leonidas recommended that they should 
retire — that is, that all except himself and the 
three hundred Spartans should do so. " You," 
said he, addressing the other Greeks, " are at 
liberty, by your laws, to consider, in such cases 
as this, the question of expediency, and to with- 
draw from a position which you have taken, or 
stand and maintain it, according as you judge 
best. But by our laws, such a question, in such 
a case, is not to be entertained, Wherever we 



216 Xerxes, [B.C. 480. 

Leonidas dismisses the other Greeks. His noble generosity. 

are posted, there we stand, come life or death, 
to the end. We have been sent here from Spar- 
ta to defend the pass of Thermopylse. We have 
received no orders to withdraw. Here, there- 
fore, we must remain ; and the Persians, if they 
go through the pass at all, must go through it 
over our graves. It is, therefore, your duty to 
retire. Our duty is here, and we will remain 
and do it." 

After all that may be said of the absurdity 
and folly of throwing away the lives of three 
hundred men in a case like this, so utterly and 
hopelessly desperate, there is still something in 
the noble generosity with which Leonidas dis- 
missed the other Greeks, and in the undaunted 
resolution with which he determined himself to 
maintain his ground, which has always strongly 
excited the admiration of mankind. It was un- 
doubtedly carrying the point of honor to a wholly 
unjustifiable extreme, and yet all the world, for 
the twenty centuries which have intervened 
since these transactions occurred, while they 
have unanimously disapproved, in theory, of the 
course which Leonidas pursued, have none the 
less unanimously admired and applauded it. 

In dismissing the other Greeks, Leonidas re- 
tained with hirn a body of Thebans, whom he 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. 217 

Leobidas retains the Thebans. Xorxes attacks him. 

suspected of a design of revolting to the enemy. 
Whether he considered his decision to keep them 
in the pass equivalent to a sentence of death, 
and intended it as a punishment for their sup- 
posed treason, or only that he wished to secure 
their continued fidelity by keeping them closely 
to their duty, does not appear. At all events, 
he retained them, and dismissed the other allies. 
Those dismissed retreated to the open country 
below. The Spartans and the Thebans remain- 
ed in the pass. There were also, it was said, 
some other troops, who, not willing to leave the 
Spartans alone in this danger, chose to remain 
with them and share their fate. The Thebans 
remained very unwillingly. 

The next morning Xerxes prepared for his 
final effort. He began by solemn religious serv- 
ices, in the presence of his army, at an early 
hour ; and then, after breakfasting quietly, as 
usual, and waiting, in fact, until the business 
part of the day had arrived, he gave orders to 
advance. His troops found Leonidas and his 
party not at their intrenchments, as before, but 
far in advance of them. They had come out 
and forward into a more open part of the defile, 
as if to court and anticipate their inevitable and 
dreaded fate. Here a most terrible combat en- 



218 Xi^RXEs. [B.C. 480. 

Tenible combat. Death of Leonidas. 

sued ; one which, for a time, seemed to have no 
other object than mutual destruction, until at 
length Leonidas himself fell, and then the con- 
test for the possession of his body superseded 
the unthinking and desperate struggles of mere 
hatred and rage. Four times the body, having 
been taken by the Persians, was retaken by the 
Greeks : at last the latter retreated, bearing the 
dead body with them past their intrenchment, 
until they gained a small eminence in the rear 
of it, at a point where the pass was wider. Here 
the few that were still left gathered together. 
The detachment which Ephialtes had guided 
were coming up from below. The Spartans 
were faint and exhausted with their desperate 
efforts, and were bleeding from the wounds they 
had received ; their swords and spears were brok- 
en to pieces, their leader and nearly all their 
company were slain. But the savage and tiger- 
like ferocity which animated them continued 
unabated till the last. They fought with tooth 
and nail when all other weapons failed them, 
and bit the dust at last, as they fell, in convul- 
sive and unyielding despair. The struggle did 
not cease till they were all slain, and every limb 
of every man ceased to quiver, 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. 219 

Stories of the battle. The two invalids. 

There were stories in circulation among man- 
kind after this battle, importing that one or two 
of the corps escaped the fate of the rest. There 
were two soldiers, it was said, that had been left 
in a town near the pass, as invalids, being af- 
flicted with a severe inflammation of the eyes. 
One of them, when he heard that the Spartans 
were to be left in the pass, went in, of his own 
accord, and joined them, choosing to share the 
fate of his comrades. It was said that he order- 
ed his servant to conduct him to the place. The 
servant did so, and then fled himself, in great 
terror. The sick soldier remained and fought 
with the rest. The other of the invalids was 
saved, but, on his return to Sparta, he was con- 
sidered as stained with indelible disgrace for 
what his countrymen regarded a base derelic- 
tion from duty in not sharing his comrade's fate. 

There was also a story of another man, who 
had been sent away on some mission into Thes- 
saly, and who did not return until all was over ; 
and also of two others who had been sent to 
Sparta, and were returning when they heard 
of the approaching conflict. One of them hast- 
ened into the pass, and was killed with his com- 
panions. The other delayed, and was saved. 
Whether any or all of these rumors were true, 



220 Xerxes. [B.C. 480, 

Xerxes views the ground. His treatment of the body of Leonidas. 

is not now certain ; there is, however, no doubt 
that, with at most a few exceptions such as 
these, the whole three hundred were slain. 

The Thebans, early in the conflict, went over 
in a body to the enemy. 

Xerxes came after the battle to view the 
ground. It was covered with many thousands 
of dead bodies, nearly all of whom, of course, 
were Persians. The wall of the intrenchment 
was broken down, and the breaches in it choked 
up by the bodies. The morasses made by the 
water of the springs were trampled into deep 
mire, and were full of the mutilated forms of 
men and of broken weapons. When Xerxes 
came at last to the body of Leonidas, and was 
told that that was the man who had been the 
leader of the band, he gloried over it in great ex- 
ultation and triumph. At length he ordered 
the body to be decapitated, and the headless 
trunk to be nailed to a cross. 

Xerxes then commanded that a great hole 
should be dug, and ordered all the bodies of the 
Persians that had been killed to be buried in it, 
except only about a thousand, which he left upon 
the ground. The object of this was to conceal 
the extent of the loss which his army had sus- 
tained. The more perfectly to accomplish this 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. 221 

Mesaage to the fleet. Xerxes sends for Deinaratus. 

end, he caused the great grave, when it was 
filled up, to be strewed over with leaves, so as to 
cover and conceal all indications of what had 
been done. This having been carefully effect- 
ed, he sent the message to the fleet, which was 
alluded to at the close of the last chapter, in- 
viting the officers to come and view the ground. 

The operations of the fleet described in the 
last chapter, and those of the army narrated in 
this, took place, it will be remembered, at the 
same time, and in the same vicinity too ; for, 
by referring to the map, it will appear that Ther- 
mopylae was upon the coast, exactly opposite to 
the channel or arm of the sea lying north of Eu- 
boea, where the naval contests had been waged ; 
so that, while Xerxes had been making his des- 
perate efforts to get through the pass, his fleet 
had been engaged in a similar conflict with the 
squadrons of the Greeks, directly opposite to 
him, twenty or thirty miles in the offing. 

After the battle of Thermopylae was over, 
Xerxes sent for Demaratus, and inquired of 
him how many more such soldiers there were in 
Greece as Leonidas and his three hundred Spar- 
tans. Demaratus replied that he could not say 
how many precisely there were in Greece, but 
that there were eight thousand such in Sparta 



222 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Conversation with Demaratus. Plans proposed by him. 

alone. Xerxes then asked the opinion of Dema- 
ratus as to the course best to be pursued for 
making the conquest of the country. This con- 
versation was held in the presence of various no- 
bles and officers, among whom was the admiral 
of the fleet, who had come, with the various oth- 
er naval commanders, as was stated in the last 
chapter, to view the battle-field. 

Demaratus said that he did not think that 
the king could easily get possession of the Pel- 
oponnesus by marching to it directly, so formi- 
dable would be the opposition that he would en- 
counter at the isthmus. There was, however, 
he said,. an island called Cythera, opposite to the 
territories of Sparta, and not far from the shore, 
of which he thought that the king could easily 
get possession, and which, once fully in his pow- 
er, might be made the base of future operations 
for the reduction of the whole peninsula, as bod- 
ies of troops could be dispatched from it to the 
main land in any numbers and at any time. He 
recommended, therefore, that three hundred 
ships, with a proper complement of men, should 
be detached from the fleet, and sent round at 
once to take possession of that island. 

To this plan the admiral of the fleet was to- 
tally opposed. It was natural that he should 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Thermopylae. *J23 

Opposition of the admiral. Decision of Xerxes 

be so, since the detaching of three hundred ships 
for this enterprise would greatly weaken the 
force under his command. It would leave the 
fleet, he told the king, a miserable remnant, not 
superior to that of the enemy, for they had al- 
ready lost four hundred ships by storms. He 
thought it infinitely preferable that the fleet and 
the army should advance together, the one by 
sea and the other on the land, and complete their 
conquests as they went along. He advised the 
dng, too, to beware of Demaratus's advice. 
•de was a Greek, and, as such, his object was, 
.he admiral believed, to betray and ruin the ex- 
pedition. 

After hearing these conflicting opinions, the 
king decided to follow the admiral's advice. 
" I will adopt your counsel," said he, " but I 
will not hear any thing said against Demara- 
tus, for I am convinced that he is a true and 
faithful friend to me." Saying this, he dis- 
missed the council. 



224 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The officers return to their vessels. The Greek fleet retire to Salamis, 



Chapter X. 

The Burning of Athens. 

TT^THEN the officers of the Persian fleet had 
' ^ satisfied themselves with examining the 
battle-field at Thermopylse, and had heard the 
narrations given by the soldiers of the terrible 
combats that had been fought with the despe- 
rate garrison which had been stationed to de- 
fend the pass, they went back to their vessels, 
and prepared to make sail to the southward, in 
pursuit of the Greek fleet. The Greek fleet 
had gone to Salamis. The Persians in due 
time overtook them there, and a great naval 
conflict occurred, which is known in history as 
the battle of Salamis, and was one of the most 
celebrated naval battles of ancient times. An 
account of this battle will form the subject of 
the next chapter. In this we are to follow the 
operations of the army on the land. 

As the Pass of Thermopylae was now in Xerx- 
es's possession, the way was open before him to 
all that portion of the great territory which lay 
north of the Peloponnesus. Of course, before 



B.C. 480. j Burning of Athens. 225 

The Thessalians. Their hostility to the Phuceeans. 

he could enter the peninsula itself, he must pass 
the Isthmus of Corinth, where he might, per- 
haps, encounter some concentrated resistance. 
North of the isthmus, however, there was no 
place where the Greeks could make a stand. 
The country was all open, or, rather, there w^ere 
a thousand ways open through the various val- 
leys and glens, and along the banks of the riv- 
ers. All that was necessary was to procure 
guides and proceed. 

The Thessalians were very ready to furnish 
guides. They had submitted to Xerxes before 
the battle of Thermopylae, and they considered 
themselves, accordingly, as his allies. They 
had, besides, a special interest in conducting 
the Persian army, on account of the hostile feel- 
ings which they entertained toward the people 
immediately south of the pass, into whose ter- 
ritories Xerxes would first carry his ravages. 
This people were the Phocseans. Their coun- 
try, as has already been stated, was separated 
from Thessaly by impassable mountains, except 
where the Straits of Thermopylae opened a pas- 
sage ; and through this pass both nations had 
been continually making hostile incursions into 
the territory of the other for many years before 
the Persian invasion. The Thessalians had 

P 



226 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Defeat of the Thessalians. Phocaean stratagem, 

surrendered readily to the summons of Xerxes, 
while the Phocseans had determined to resist 
him, and adhere to the cause of the Greeks in 
the struggle. They were suspected of having 
been influenced, in a great measure, in their de- 
termination to resist, by the fact that the Thes- 
salians had decided to surrender. They were 
resolved that they would not, on any account, 
be upon the same side with their ancient and 
inveterate foes. 

The hostility of the Thessalians to the Pho- 
cseans was equally implacable. At the last in- 
cursion which they had made into the Phocsean 
territory, they had been defeated by means of 
stratagems in a manner which tended greatly 
to vex and irritate them. There were two of 
these stratagems, which were both completely 
successful, and both of a very extraordinary 
character. 

The first was this. The Thessalians were in 
the Phocsean country in great force, and the Pho- 
cseans had found themselves utterly unable to 
expel them. Under these circumstances, a body 
of the Phocseans, six hundred in number, one 
day whitened their faces, their arms and hands, 
their clothes, and all their weapons, with chalk, 
and then, at the dead of night — ^perhaps, how- 



B.C. 480.] Burning of Athens. 227 

A spectral army. Thessalian cavalry. 

ever, when the moon was shining — made an on- 
set upon the camp of the enemy. The Thessa- 
lian sentinels were terrified and ran away, and 
the soldiers, awakened from their slumbers by 
these unearthly-looking troops, screamed with 
fright, and fled in all directions, in utter con- 
fusion and dismay. A night attack is usually 
a dangerous attempt, even if the assaulting 
party is the strongest, as, in the darkness and 
confusion which then prevail, the assailants can 
not ordinarily distinguish friends from foes, and 
so are in great danger, amid the tumult and ob- 
scurity, of slaying one another. That difficulty 
was obviated in this case by the strange disguise 
which the Phocseans had assumed. They knew 
that all were Thessalians who were not whitened 
like themselves. The Thessalians were totally 
discomfited and dispersed by this encounter. 

The other stratagem was of a different char- 
acter, and was directed against a troop of cav- 
alry. The Thessalian cavalry were renowned 
throughout the world. The broad plains ex- 
tending through the heart of their country con- 
tained excellent fields for training and exercis- 
ing such troops, and the mountains which sur- 
sounded it furnished grassy slopes and verdant 
valleys, that supplied excellent pasturage for 



228 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Pitfall for the cavalry. They are caught in it. 

the rearing of horses. The nation was very- 
strong, therefore, in this species of force, and 
many of the states and kingdoms of Greece, 
when planning their means of internal defense, 
and potentates and conquerors, when going forth 
on great campaigns, often considered their ar- 
mies incomplete unless there was included in 
them a corps of Thessalian cavalry. 

A troop of this cavalry had invaded Phocis, 
and the Phocseans, conscious of their inability 
to resist them in open war, contrived to entrap 
them in the following manner. They dug a 
long trench in the ground, and then putting in 
baskets or casks sufficient nearly to fill the space, 
they spread over the top a thin layer of soil. 
They then concealed all indications that the 
ground had been disturbed, by spreading leaves 
over the surface. The trap being thus prepared, 
they contrived to entice the Thessalians to the 
spot by a series of retreats, and at length led 
them into the pitfall thus provided for them. 
The substructure of casks was strong enough to 
sustain the Phocssans, who went over it as foot- 
men, but was too fragile to bear the weight of 
the mounted troops. The horses broke through, 
and the squadron was thrown into such confu- 
sion by so unexpected a disaster, that, when 



B.C.480.J Burning of Athens. 229 

Advance of the army. Cruelties and atrocities. 

the Phocaeans turned and fell upon them, they 
were easily overcome. 

These things had irritated and vexed the 
Thessalians very much. They were eager for 
revenge, and they were very ready to guide the 
armies of Xerxes into the country of their ene- 
mies in order to obtain it. 

The troops advanced accordingly, awakening 
every where, as they came on, the greatest con- 
sternation and terror among the inhabitants, 
and producing on all sides scenes of indescriba- 
ble anguish and suffering. They came into the 
valley of the Cephisus, a beautiful river flow- 
ing through a delightful and fertile region, which 
contained many cities and towns, and was filled 
every where with an industrious rural popula- 
tion. Through this scene of peace, and hap- 
piness, and plenty, the vast horde of invaders 
swept on with the destructive force of a tornado. 
They plundered the towns of every thing which 
could be carried away, and destroyed what they 
were compelled to leave behind them. There is 
a catalogue of twelve cities in this valley which 
they burned. The inhabitants, too, were treat- 
ed with the utmost cruelty. Some were seized, 
and compelled to follow the army as slaves ; oth- 
ers were slain ; and others still were subjected 



230 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The sacred town of Delphi. Moimt Parnassus. 

to nameless cruelties and atrocities, worse some- 
times than death. Many of the women, both 
mothers and maidens, died in consequence of 
the brutal violence with which the soldiers treat- 
ed them. 

The most remarkable of the transactions con- 
nected with Xerxes's advance through the coun- 
try of Phocis, on his way to Athens, were those 
connected with his attack upon Delphi. Del- 
phi was a sacred town, the seat of the oracle. 
It was in the vicinity of Mount Parnassus and 
of the Castalian spring, places of very great re- 
nown in the Greek mythology. 

Parnassus was the name of a short mount- 
ainous range rather than of a single peak, 
though the loftiest summit of the range was 
called Parnassus too. This summit is found, 
by modern measurement, to be about eight thou- 
sand feet high, and it is covered with snow near- 
ly all the year. When bare it consists only 
of a desolate range of rocksy with mosses and 
a few Alpine plants growing on the sheltered 
and sunny sides of them. From the top of Par- 
nassus travelers who now visit it look down upon 
almost all of Greece as upon a map. The Gulf 
of Corinth is a silver lake at their feet, and the 
plains of Thessaly are seen extending far and 



B.C. 480.] Burning of Athens. 231 



Summit of Parnassus. The Castalian spring. 

wide to the northward, with Olympus, Pelion, 
and Ossa, blue and distant peaks, bounding the 
view. 

Parnassus has, in fact, a double summit, be- 
tween the peaks of which a sort of ravine com- 
mences, which, as it extends down the mount- 
ain, becomes a beautiful valley, shaded with 
rows of trees, and adorned with slopes of verd- 
ure and banks of flowers. In a glen connect- 
ed with this valley there is a fountain of water 
springing copiously from among the rocks, in a 
grove of laurels. This fountain gives rise to a 
stream, which, after bounding over the rocks, 
and meandering between mossy banks for a long 
distance down the mountain glens, becomes a 
quiet lowland stream, and flows gently through 
a fertile and undulating country to the sea. 
This fountain was the famous Castalian spring. 
It was, as the ancient Greek legends said, the 
favorite resort and residence of Apollo and the 
Muses, and its waters became, accordingly, the 
symbol and the emblem of poetical inspiration. 

The city of Delphi was built upon the lower 
declivities of the Parnassian ranges, and yet 
high above the surrounding country. It was 
built in the form of an amphitheater, in a sort 
of lap in the hill where it stood, with steep prec- 



232 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

The oracle. Architectural structures. Works of art 

ipices descending to a great depth on either side. 
It was thus a position of difficult access, and 
was considered almost impregnable in respect 
to its military strength. Besides its natural 
defenses, it was considered as under the special 
protection of Apollo, 

Delphi was celebrated throughout the world, 
in ancient times, not only for the oracle itself, 
but for the magnificence of the architectural 
structures, the boundless profusion of the works 
of art, and the immense value of the treasures 
which, in process of time, had been accumula- 
ted there. The various powers and potentates 
that had resorted to it to obtain the responses 
of the oracle, had brought rich presents, or made 
costly contributions in some way, to the service 
of the shrine. Some had built temples, others 
had constructed porches or colonnades. Some 
had adorned the streets of the city with archi- 
tectural embellishments ; others had caused 
statues to be erected ; and others had made 
splendid donations of vessels of gold and silver, 
until at length the wealth and magnificence of 
Delphi was the wonder of the world. All na- 
tions resorted to it, some to see its splendors, and 
others to obtain the counsel and direction of the 
oracle in emergencies of difficulty or danger. 



B.C. 480.] Burning of Athens. 233 

Inspiration of the oracle. Its discovery. 

In the time of Xerxes, Delphi had been for 
several hundred years in the enjoyment of its 
fame as a place of divine inspiration. It was 
said to have been originally discovered in the 
following manner. Some herdsmen on the 
mountains, watching their flocks, observed one 
day a number of goats performing very strange 
and unaccountable antics among some crevices 
in the rocks, and, going to the place, they found 
that a mysterious wind was issuing from the 
crevices, which produced an extraordinary ex- 
hilaration on all who breathed it. Every thing 
extraordinary was thought, in those days, to be 
supernatural and divine, and the fame of this 
discovery was spread every where, the people 
supposing that the effect produced upon the men 
and animals by breathing the mysterious air 
was a divine inspiration. A temple was built 
over the spot, priests and priestesses were in- 
stalled, a city began to rise, and in process of 
time Delphi became the most celebrated oraclo 
in the world ; and as the vast treasures which 
had been accumulated there consisted mainly 
of gifts and offerings consecrated to a divine and 
sacred service, they were all understood to be 
under divine protection. They were defended, 
it is true, in part by the inaccessibleness of the 



234 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Panic of the Delphians. They apply to the oracle. 

position of Delphi, and by the artificial fortifica- 
tions which had been added from time to time 
to increase the security, but still more by the 
feeling which every where prevailed, that any 
violence offered to such a shrine would be pun- 
ished by the gods as sacrilege. The account of 
the manner in which Xerxes was repulsed, as 
related by the ancient historians, is somewhat 
marvelous. We, however, in this case, as in all 
others, transmit the story to our readers as the 
ancient historians give it to us. 

The main body of the army pursued its way 
directly southward toward the city of Athens, 
which was now the great object at which Xerx- 
es aimed. A large detachment, however, sep- 
arating from the main body, moved more to the 
westward, toward Delphi. Their plan was to 
plunder the temples and the city, and send the 
treasures to the king. The Delphians, on hear- 
ing this, were seized with consternation. They 
made application themselves to the oracle, to 
know what they were to do in respect to the sa- 
cred treasures. They could not defend them, 
they said, against such a host, and they inquired 
whether they should bury them in the earth, or 
attempt to remove them to some distant place 
of safety. . 



B.C. 480.] Burning of Athens. 235 

Response of the oracle. The prodigy in the temple. 

The oracle replied that they were to do noth- 
ing at all in respect to the sacred treasures. The 
divinity, it said, was able to protect what was its 
own. They, on their part, had only to provide 
for themselves, their wives, and their children. 

On hearing this response, the people dismiss- 
ed all care in respect to the treasures of the tem- 
ple and of the shrine, and made arrangements 
for removing their families and their own effects 
to some place of safety toward the southward. 
The military force of the city and a small num- 
ber of the inhabitants alone remained. 

When the Persians began to draw near, a 
prodigy occurred in the temple, which seemed 
intended to warn the profane invaders away. 
It seems that there was a suit of arms, of a cost- 
ly character doubtless, and highly decorated 
with gold and gems — the present, probably, of 
some Grecian state or king — which were hung 
in an inner and sacred apartment of the temple, 
and which it was sacrilegious for any human 
hand to touch. These arms were found, on the 
day when the Persians were approaching, re- 
moved to the outward front of the temple. The 
priest who first observed them was struck with 
amazement and awe. He spread the intelli- 
gence among the soldiers and the people that 



236 Xerxes. [B.C. 480, 

Discomfiture of the Persians. The spirit warriors 

remained, and the circumstance awakened in 
them great animation and courage. 

Nor were the hopes of divine interposition 
which this wonder awakened disappointed in 
the end ; for, as soon as the detachment of Per- 
sians came near the hill on which Delphi was 
situated, loud thunder burst from the sky, and 
a bolt, descending upon the precipices near the 
town, detached two enormous masses of rock, 
which rolled down upon the ranks of the inva- 
ders. The Delphian soldiers, taking advantage 
of the scene of panic and confusion which this 
awful visitation produced, rushed down upon 
their enemies and completed their discomfiture. 
They were led on and assisted in this attack by 
the spirits of two ancient heroes, who had been 
natives of the country, and to whom two of the 
temples of Delphi had been consecrated. These 
spirits appeared in the form of tall and full-arm- 
ed warriors, who led the attack, and performed 
prodigies of strength and valor in the onset upon 
the Persians ; and then, when the battle was 
over, disappeared as mysteriously as they came. 

In the mean time the great body of the army 
of Xerxes, with the monarch at their head, was 
advancing on Athens. During his advance the 
city had been in a continual state of panic and 



B.C. 480.] Burning of Athens. 237 

Consternation at Athens. The inhabitants advised to fly. 

confusion. In the first place, when the Greek 
fleet had concluded to give up the contest in the 
Artemisian Channel, before the battle of Ther- 
mopylae, and had passed around to Salamis, the 
commanders in the city of Athens had given up 
the hope of making any effectual defense, and 
had given orders that the inhabitants should 
save themselves by seeking a refuge wherever 
they could find it. This annunciation, of course, 
filled the city with dismay, and the preparations 
for a general flight opened every where scenes 
of terror and distress, of which those who have 
never witnessed the evacuation of a city by its 
inhabitants can scarcely conceive. 

The immediate object of the general terror 
was, at this time, the Persian fleet; for the 
Greek fleet, having determined to abandon the 
waters on that side of Attica, left the whole 
coast exposed, and the Persians might be expect- 
ed at any hour to make a landing within a few 
miles of the city. Scarcely, however, had the 
impending of this danger been made known to 
the city, before the tidings of one still more im- 
minent reached it, in the news that the Pass of 
Thermopylae had been carried, and that, in ad- 
dition to the peril with which the Athenians 
were threatened by the fleet on the side of the 



238 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Scenes of misery. Some of the inhabitants remain. 

sea, the whole Persian army was coming down 
upon them by land. This fresh alarm greatly 
increased, of course, the general consternation. 
All the roads leading from the city toward the 
south and west were soon covered with parties 
of wretched fugitives, exhibiting as they press- 
ed forward, weary and wayworn, on their toil- 
some and almost hopeless flight, every possible 
phase of misery, destitution, and despair. The 
army fell back to the isthmus, intending to make 
a stand, if possible, there, to defend the Pelopon- 
nesus. The fugitives made the best of their 
way to the sea-coast, where they were received 
on board transport ships sent thither from the 
fleet, and conveyed, some to Egina, some to Sala- 
mis, and others to other points on the coasts and 
islands to the south, wherever the terrified exiles 
thought there was the best prospect of safety. 

Some, however, remained at Athens. There 
was a part of the population who believed that 
the phrase " wooden walls," used by the oracle, 
referred, not to the ships of the fleet, but to the 
wooden palisade around the citadel. They ac- 
cordingly repaired and strengthened the pali- 
sade, and established themselves in the fortress 
with a small garrison which undertook to de- 
fend it 



B.C. 480.] Burning of Athens. 239 

Situatdon of the Acropolis. Magnificent architectural structures. 

The citadel of Athens, or the Acropohs, as it 
was called, was the richest, and most splendid, 
and magnificent fortress in the world. It was 
built upon an oblong rocky hill, the sides of 
which were perpendicular cliffs, except at one 
end, where alone the summit was accessible. 
This summit presented an area of an oval form, 
about a thousand feet in length and five hund- 
red broad, thus containing a space of about ten 
acres. This area upon the summit, and also 
the approaches at the western end, were cover- 
ed with the most grand, imposing, and costly 
architectural structures that then existed in the 
whole European world. There were temples, 
colonnades, gateways, stairways, porticoes, tow- 
ers, and walls, which, viewed as a whole, pre- 
sented a most magnificent spectacle, that ex- 
cited universal admiration, and which, when 
examined in detail, awakened a greater degree 
of wonder still by the costliness of the materi- 
als, the beauty and perfection of the workman- 
ship, and the richness and profusion of the dec- 
orations, which were seen on every hand. The 
number and variety of statues of bronze and of 
marble which had been erected in the various 
temples and upon the different platforms were 
very great. There was one, a statue of Miner* 



240 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Statue of Minerva. The Parthenon. Xerxes at Athens. 

va, which was executed by Phidias, the great 
Athenian sculptor, after the celebrated battle 
of Marathon, in the days of Darius, which, with 
its pedestal, was sixty feet high. It stood on 
the left of the grand entrance, towering above 
the buildings in full view from the country be- 
low, and leaning upon its long spear like a co- 
lossal sentinel on guard. In the distance, on 
the right, from the same point of view, the great 
temple called the Parthenon was to be seen, a 
temple which was, in some respects, the most 
celebrated in the world. The ruins of these 
edifices remain to the present day, standing in 
desolate and solitary grandeur on the rocky hill 
which they once so richly adorned. 

When Xerxes arrived at Athens, he found, 
of course, no difficulty in obtaining possession 
of the city itself, since it had been deserted by 
its inhabitants, and left defenseless. The peo- 
ple that remained had all crowded into the cita- 
del. They had built the wooden palisade across 
the only approach by which it was possible to 
get near the gates, and they had collected large 
stones on the tops of the rocks, to roll down upon 
their assailants if they should attempt to ascend. 

Xerxes, after ravaging and burning the town, 
took UD a position upon a hill opposite to the cit- 




4 



B.C. 480.] Burning of Athens. 243 

Athens burned. The'citadel taken and fired. 

adel, and there he had engines constructed to 
throw enormous arrows, on which tow that had 
been dipped in pitch was wound. This combus- 
tible envelopment of the arrows was set on fire 
before the weapon was discharged, and a shower 
of the burning missiles thus formed was directed 
toward the palisade. The wooden walls were 
soon set on fire by them, and totally consumed. 
The access to the Acropolis was, however, still 
difficult, being by a steep acclivity, up which it 
was very dangerous to ascend so long as the be- 
siegers were ready to roll down rocks upon their 
assailants from above. 

At last, however, after a long conflict and 
much slaughter, Xerxes succeeded in forcing 
his way into the citadel. Some of his troops 
contrived to find a path by which they could 
climb up to the walls. Here, after a desperate 
combat with those who were stationed to guard 
the place, they succeeded in gaining admission, 
and then opened the gates to their comrades be- 
low. The Persian soldiers, exasperated with 
the resistance which they had encountered, slew 
the soldiers of the garrison, perpetrated every 
imaginable violence on the wretched inhabit- 
ants who had fled there for shelter, and then 
plundered the citadel and set it on fire. 



244 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Exultation of Xerxes. * Messenger sent to Susa, 

The heart of Xerxes was filled with exulta- 
tion and joy as he thus arrived at the attain- 
ment of what had been the chief and prominent 
object of his campaign. To plunder and destroy 
the city of Athens had been the great pleasure 
that he had promised himself in all the mighty 
preparations that he had made. This result 
was now realized, and he dispatched a special 
messenger immediately to Susa with the tri- 
umphant tidings. 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 245 

Situation of Salamis. Movements of the fleet and the army. 



Chapter XL 
The Battle of Salamis. 

SALAMIS is an island of a very irregular 
form, lying in the Saronian Gulf, north of 
Egina, and to the westward of Athens. What 
was called the Port of Athens was on the shore 
opposite to Salamis, the city itself being situa- 
ted on elevated land four or five miles back from 
the sea. From this port to the bay on the south- 
ern side of Salamis, where the Greek fleet was 
lying, it was only four or five miles more, so 
that, when Xerxes burned the city, the people 
on board the galleys in the fleet might easily 
see the smoke of the conflagration. 

The Isthmus of Corinth was west of Salamis, 
some fifteen miles, across the bay. The army, 
in retreating from Athens toward the isthmus, 
would have necessarily to pass round the bay 
in a course somewhat circuitous, while the 
fleet, in following them, would pass in a direct 
line across it. The geographical relations of 
these places, a knowledge of which is necessary 
to a full understanding of the operations of the 



246 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Policy of the Greeks. Reasons for retreating to Salamis. 

Greek and Persian forces, will be distinctly seen 
by comparing the above description with the 
map placed at the commencement of the fifth 
chapter. 

It had been the policy of the Greeks to keep 
the fleet and army as much as possible together, 
and thus, during the time in which the troops 
were attempting a concentration at Thermopy- 
lae, the ships made their rendezvous in the Ar- 
temisian Strait or Channel, directly opposite to 
that point of the coast. There they fought, 
maintaining their position desperately, day after 
day, as long as Leonidas and his Spartans held 
their ground on the shore. Their sudden disap- 
pearance from those waters, by which the Per- 
sians had been so much surprised, was caused 
by their having received intelligence that the 
pass had been carried and Leonidas destroyed. 
They knew then that Athens would be the next 
point of resistance by the land forces. They 
therefore fell back to Salamis, or, rather, to the 
bay lying between Salamis and the Athenian 
shore, that being the nearest position that they 
could take to support the operations of the army 
in their attempts to defend the capital. When, 
however, the tidings came to them that Athens 
had fallen, and that what remained of the army 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 247 



A council of war. Consultations and debates. 

had retreated to the isthmus, the question at 
once arose whether the fleet should retreat too, 
across the bay, to the isthmus shore, with a view 
to co-operate more fully with the army in the 
new position which the latter had taken, or 
whether it should remain where it was, and de- 
fend itself as it best could against the Persian 
squadrons which would soon be drawing near. 
The commanders of the fleet held a consulta- 
tion to consider this question. 

In this consultation the Athenian and the Co- 
rinthian leaders took different views. In fact, 
they were very near coming into open collision. 
Such a difference of opinion, considering the cir- 
cumstances of the case, was not at all surpris- 
ing. It might, indeed, have naturally been ex- 
pected to arise, from the relative situation of the 
two cities, in respect to the danger which threat- 
ened them. If the Greek fleet were to withdraw 
from Salamis to the isthmus, it might be in a 
better position to defend Corinth, but it would, 
by such a movement, be withdrawing from the 
Athenian territories, and abandoning what re- 
mained in Attica wholly to the conqueror. The 
Athenians were, therefore, in favor of main- 
taining the position 'at Salamis, while the Co- 
rinthians were disposed to retire to the shores 



248 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Conflicting views. The council breaks up in confusion, 

of the isthmus, and co-operate with the army 
there. 

The council was convened to deliberate on 
this subject before the news arrived of the act- 
ual fall of Athens, although, inasmuch as the 
Persians were advancing into Attica in im- 
mense numbers, and there was no Greek force 
left to defend the city, they considered its fall 
as all but inevitable. The tidings of the cap- 
ture and destruction of Athens came while the 
council was in session. This seemed to determ- 
ine the question. The Corinthian commanders, 
and those from the other Peloponnesian cities, 
declared that it was perfectly absurd to remain 
any longer at Salamis, in a vain attempt to de- 
fend a country already conquered. The coun- 
cil was broken up in confusion, each command- 
er retiring to his own ship, and the Peloponne- 
sians resolving to withdraw on the following 
morning. Eurybiades, who, it will be recollect- 
ed, was the commander-in-chief of all the Greek 
fleet, finding thus that it was impossible any lon- 
ger to keep the ships together at Salamis, since 
a part of them would, at all events, withdraw, 
concluded to yield to the necessity of the case, 
and to conduct the whole fleet to the isthmus. 
He issued his orders accordingly, and the sev- 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 249 



Themistocles. Interview with Mnesiphilus. 

eral commanders repaired to their respective 
ships to make the preparations. It was night 
when the council was dismissed, and the fleet 
was to move in the morning. 

One of the most influential and distinguished 
of the Athenian officers was a general named 
Themistocles. Very soon after he had return- 
ed to his ship from this council, he was visited 
by another Athenian named Mnesiphilus, who, 
uneasy and anxious in the momentous crisis, had 
come in his boat, in the darkness of the night, to 
Themistocles's ship, to converse with him on the 
plans of the morrow. Mnesiphilus asked The- 
mistocles what was the decision of the council. 

" To abandon Salamis," said Themistocles, 
" and retire to the isthmus." 

"Then," said Mnesiphilus, ''we shall never 
have an opportunity to meet the enemy. I am 
sure that if we leave this position the fleet will 
be wholly broken up, and that each portion will 
go, under its own commander, to defend its own 
state or seek its own safety, independently of 
the rest. We shall never be able to concen- 
trate our forces again. The result will be the 
inevitable dissolution of the fleet as a combined 
and allied force, in spite of all that Eurybiades 
or any one else can do to prevent it." 



250 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Themistocles seeks Eurybiades. Urges a new council. 

Mnesiphilus urged this danger with so much 
earnestness and eloquence as to make a very 
considerable impression on the mind of Themis- 
tocles. Themistocles said nothing, but his coun- 
tenance indicated that he was very strongly in- 
clined to adopt Mnesiphilus's views. Mnesiph- 
ilus urged him to go immediately to Eurybia- 
des, and endeavor to induce him to obtain a re- 
versal of the decision of the council. Themis- 
tocles, without expressing either assent or dis- 
sent, took his boat, and ordered the oarsmen to 
row him to the galley of Eurybiades. Mne- 
siphilus, having so far accomplished his object, 
went away. 

Themistocles came in his boat to the side of 
Eurybiades's galley. He said that he wished 
to speak with the general on a subject of great 
importance. Eurybiades, when this was re- 
ported to him, sent to invite Themistocles to 
come on board. Themistocles did so, and he 
urged upon the general the same arguments that 
Mnesiphilus had pressed upon him, namely, that 
if the fleet were once to move from their actual 
position, the different squadrons would inevita- 
bly separate, and could never be assembled 
again. He urged Eurybiades, therefore, very 
strenuously to call a new council, with a view 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 251 



The council convened again. Themistocles rebuked 

of reversing the decision that had been made to 
retire, and of resolving instead to give battle to 
the Persians at Salamis. 

Eurybiades was persuaded, and immediately 
took measures for convening the council again. 
The summons, sent around thus at midnight, 
calling upon the principal officers of the fleet to 
repair again in haste to the commander's galley, 
when they had only a short time before been 
dismissed from it, produced great excitement. 
The Corinthians, who had been in favor of the 
plan of abandoning Salamis, conjectured that 
the design might be to endeavor to reverse that 
decision, and they came to the council determ- 
ined to resist any such attempt, if one should 
be made. 

When the officers had arrived, Themistocles 
began immediately to open the discussion, be- 
fore, in fact, Eurybiades had stated why he had 
called them together. A Corinthian officer in- 
terrupted and rebuked him for presuming to 
speak before his time. Themistocles retorted 
upon the Corinthian, and continued his ha- 
rangue. He urged the council to review their 
former decision, and to determine, after all, to 
remain at Salamis. He, however, now used 
different arguments from those which he had 



252 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Theraiatocles's arguments for remaining at Salamis. 

employed when speaking to Eury'biades alone ; 
for to have directly charged the officers them- 
selves with the design of which he had accused 
them to EurybiadeSj namely, that of abandon- 
ing their allies, and retiring with their respect- 
ive ships, each to his own coast, in case the po- 
sition at Salamis were to be given up, would 
only incense them, and arouse a hostility which 
would determine them against any thing that 
he might propose. 

He therefore urged the expediency of remain- 
ing at Salamis on other grounds. Salamis was 
a much more advantageous position, he said, 
than the coast of the isthmus, for a small fleet 
to occupy in awaiting an attack from a large 
one. At Salamis they were defended in part 
by the projections of the land, which protected 
their flanks, and prevented their being assailed, 
except in front, and their front they might make 
a very narrow one. At the isthmus, on the con- 
trary, there was a long, unvaried, and unshelter- 
ed coast, with no salient points to give strength 
or protection to their position there. They could 
not expect to derive serious advantage from any 
degree of co-operation with the army on the land 
which would be practicable at the isthmus, while 
their situation at sea there would be far more ex- 



B.C.480.] Battle of Salamis. 253 



Fugitives at Salamis. Views of the Corinthians. 

posed and dangerous than where they then were. 
Besides, many thousands of the people had fled 
to Salamis for refuge and protection, and the 
fleet, by leaving its present position, would be 
guilty of basely abandoning them all to hopeless 
destruction, without even making an effort to 
save them. 

This last was, in fact, the great reason why 
the Athenians were so unwilling to abandon 
Salamis. The unhappy fugitives with which 
the island was thronged were their wives and 
children, and they were extremely unwilling to 
go away and leave them to so cruel a fate as 
they knew would await them if the fleet were 
to be withdrawn. The Corinthians, on the oth- 
er hand, considered Athens as already lost, and 
it seemed madness to them to linger uselessly 
in the vicinity of the ruin which had been made, 
while there were other states and cities in other 
quarters of Greece yet to be saved. The Co- 
rinthian speaker who had rebuked Themistocles 
at first, interrupted him again, angrily, before 
he finished his appeal. 

" You have no right to speak," said he. '' You 
have no longer a country. When you cease to 
represent a power, you have no right to take a 
part in our councils." 



254 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Excitement in the council. Indignation of Themistocles. 

This cruel retort aroused in the mind of The- 
mistocles a strong feeling of indignation and an- 
ger against the Corinthian. He loaded his op- 
ponent, in return, with bitter reproaches, and 
said, in conclusion, that as long as the Atheni- 
ans had two hundred ships in the fleet, they had 
still a country — one, too, of sufficient import- 
ance to the general defense to give them a much 
better title to be heard in the common consul- 
tations than any Corinthian could presume to 
claim. 

Then turning to Eurybiades again, Themis- 
tocles implored him to remain at Salamis, and 
give battle to the Persians there, as that was, 
he said, the only course by which any hope re- 
mained to them of the salvation of Greece. He 
declared that the Athenian part of the fleet 
would never go to the isthmus. If the others 
decided on going there, they, the Athenians, 
would gather all the fugitives they could from 
the island of Salamis and from the coasts of At- 
tica, and make the best of their way to Italy, 
where there was a territory to which they had 
some claim, and, abandoning Greece forever, 
they would found a new kingdom there. 

Eurybiades, the commander-in-chief, if he 
was not convinced by the arguments that The- 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 255 

Eurybiades decides to remain at Salamis. Au earthquake. 

mistocles had offered, was alarmed at his decla- 
ration that the Athenian ships would abandon 
the cause of the Greeks if the fleet abandoned 
Salamis ; he accordingly gave his voice very de- 
cidedly for remaining where they were. The 
rest of the officers finally acquiesced in this de- 
cision, and the council broke up, the various 
, members of it returning each to his own com- 
mand. It was now nearly morning. The whole 
fleet had been, necessarily, during the night in 
a state of great excitement and suspense, all 
anxious to learn the result of these deliberations. 
The awe and solemnity which would, of course, 
pervade the minds of men at midnight, while 
such momentous questions were pending, were 
changed to an appalling sense of terror, toward 
the dawn, by an earthquake which then took 
place, and which, as is usually the case with 
such convulsions, not only shook the land, but 
was felt by vessels on the sea. The men con- 
sidered this phenomenon as a solemn warning 
from heaven, and measures were immediately 
adopted for appeasing, by certain special sacri- 
fices and ceremonies, the divine displeasure 
which the shock ssemed to portend. 

In the mean time, the Persian fleet, which we 
left, it will be recollected, in the channels be- 



256 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Advance of the Persians. Perilous situation of the Greeks. 

tween Euboeaand the main land, near to Ther- 
mopylsBj had advanced when they found that the 
Greeks had left those waters, and, following 
their enemies to the southward through the 
channel called the Euripus, had doubled the 
promontory called Sunium, which is the south- 
ern promontory of Attica, and then, moving 
northward again along the western coast of At- 
tica, had approached Phalerum, which was not 
far from Salamis. Xerxes, having concluded 
his operations at Athens, advanced to the same 
point by land. - 

The final and complete success of the Per- 
sian expedition seemed now almost sure. All 
the country north of the peninsula had fallen. 
The Greek army had retreated to the isthmus, 
having been driven from every other post, and 
its last forlorn hope of being able to resist the 
advance of its victorious enemies was depend- 
ing there. And the commanders of the Persian 
fleet, having driven the Greek squadrons in the 
same manner from strait to strait and from sea 
to sea, saw the discomfited galleys drawn up, in 
apparently their last place of refuge, in the Bay 
of Salamis, and only waiting to be captured and 
destroyed. 

In a word, every thing seemed ready for the 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 257 

Xerxes summons a council of war. Pompous preparations. 

decisive and final blow, and Xerxes summoned 
a grand council of war on board one of the ves- 
sels of the fleet as soon as he arrived at Phale- 
rum, to decide upon the time and manner of 
striking it. 

The convening of this council was arranged, 
and the deliberations themselves conducted, 
with great parade and ceremony. The princes 
of the various nations represented in the army 
and in the fleet, and the leading Persian officers 
and nobles, were summoned to attend it. It 
was held on board one of the principal galleys, 
where great preparations had been made for re- 
ceiving so august an assemblage. A throne was 
provided for the king, and seats for the various 
commanders according to their respective ranks, 
and a conspicuous place was assigned to Arte- 
misia, the Carian queen, who, the reader will 
perhaps recollect, was described as one of the 
prominent naval commanders, in the account 
given of the great review at Doriscus. Mardo- 
nius appeared at the council as the king's rep- 
resentative and the conductor of the deUbera- 
tions, there being required, according to the 
parliamentary etiquette of those days, in such 
royal councils as these, a sort of mediator, to 
stand between the king and his counselors, as 

R 



258 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Views of the Persian officers. Views of Queen Artemisia, 

if the monarch himself was on too sublime an 
elevation of dignity and grandeur to be directly 
addressed even by princes and nobles. 

Accordingly, when the council was convened 
and the time arrived for opening the delibera- 
tions, the king directed Mardonius to call upon 
the commanders present, one by one, for their 
sentiments on the question whether it were ad- 
visable or not to attack the Greek fleet at Sala- 
mis. Mardonius did so. They all advised that 
the attack should be made, urging severally va- 
rious considerations to enforce their opinions, 
and all evincing a great deal of zeal and ardor 
in the cause, and an impatient desire that the 
great final conflict should come on. 

When, however, it came to Artemisia's turn 
to speak, it appeared that she was of a different 
sentiment from the rest. She commenced her 
speech with something like an apology for pre- 
suming to give the king her council. She said 
that, notwithstanding her sex, she had perform- 
ed her part, with other commanders, in the bat- 
tles which had already occurred, and that she 
was, perhaps, entitled accordingly, in the con- 
sultations which were held, to express her opin- 
ion. " Say, then, to the king," she continued, 
addressing Mardonius, as all the others had done, 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 259 

Artemisia's arguments against attacking the Greek fleet. 

*' that my judgment is, that we should not at- 
tack the Greek fleet at Salamis, but, on the con- 
trary, that we should avoid a battle. It seems 
to me that we have nothing to gain, but should 
put a great deal at hazard by a general naval 
conflict at the present time. The truth is, that 
the Greeks, always terrible as combatants, are 
rendered desperate now by the straits to which 
they are reduced and the losses that they have 
sustained. The seamen of our fleet are as in- 
ferior to them in strength and courage as wom- 
en are to men. I am sure that it will be a very 
dangerous thing to encounter them in their pres- 
ent chafed and irritated temper. Whatever oth- 
ers may think, I myself should not dare to an- 
swer for the result. 

''Besides, situated as they are," continued 
Artemisia, " a battle is what they must most 
desire, and, of course, it is adverse to our interest 
to accord it to them. I have ascertained that 
they have but a small supply of food, either in 
their fleet or upon the island of Salamis, while 
they have, besides their troops, a great multi- 
tude of destitute and helpless fugitives to be fed. 
If we simply leave them to themselves under the 
blockade in which our position here now places 
them, they will soon be reduced to great dis- 



260 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Effect of Artemisia's speech. Feelings of the council. 

tress. Or, if we withdraw from them, and pro- 
ceed at once to the Peloponnesus, to co-operate 
with the army there, we shall avoid all the risk 
of a battle, and I am sure that the Greek fleet 
will never dare to follow or to molest us." 

The several members of the council listened 
to this unexpected address of Artemisia with 
great attention and interest, but with very dif- 
ferent feelings. She had many friends among 
the counselors, and they were anxious and un- 
easy at hearing her speak in this manner, for 
they knew very well that it was the king's de- 
cided intention that a battle should be fought, 
and they feared that, by this bold and strenu- 
ous opposition to it, Artemisia would incur the 
mighty monarch's displeasure. There were 
others who were jealous of the influence which 
Artemisia enjoyed, and envious of the favor 
with which they knew that Xerxes regarded her. 
These men were secretly pleased to hear her ut- 
tering sentiments by which they confidently 
believed that she would excite the anger of the 
king, and wholly lose her advantageous position. 
Both the hopes and the fears, however, enter- 
tained respectively by the queen's enemies and 
friends, proved altogether groundless. Xerxes 
was not displeased. On the contrary, he ap- 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. ' 261 

Discontent among the Greeks. Sicinnus. 

plauded Artemisia's ingenuity and eloquence in 
the highest terms, though he said, nevertheless, 
that he would follow the advice of the other coun- 
selors. He dismissed the assembly, and gave 
orders to prepare for battle. 

In the mean time a day or two had passed 
away, and the Greeks, who had been originally 
very little inclined to acquiesce in the decision 
which Eurybiades had made, under the influ- 
ence of Themistocles, to remain at Salamis and 
give the Persians battle, became more and more 
dissatisfied and uneasy as the great crisis drew 
nigh. In fact, the discontent and disaffection 
which appeared in certain portions of the fleet 
became so decided and so open, that Themisto- 
cles feared that some of the commanders would 
actually revolt, and go away with their squad- 
rons in a body, in defiance of the general decis- 
ion to remain. To prevent such a desertion as 
this, he contrived the following very desperate 
stratagem. 

He had a slave in his family named. Sicin- 
nus, who was an intelligent and educated man, 
though a slave. In fact, he was the teacher of 
Themistocles's children. Instances of this kind, 
in which slaves were refined and cultivated men, 
were not uncommon in ancient times, as slaves 



262 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Bold stratagem of Themistocles. He sends Sicinnus to the Persians. 

were, in many instances, captives taken in war, 
who before their captivity had occupied as high 
social positions as their masters. Themistocles 
determined to send Sicinnus to the Persian fleet 
with a message from him, which should induce 
the Persians themselves to take measures to pre- 
vent the dispersion of the Greek fleet. Having 
given the slave, therefore, his secret instructions, 
he put him into a boat when night came on, with 
oarsmen who were directed to row him wherever 
he should require them to go. The boat pushed 
off stealthily from Themistocles's galley, and, 
taking care to keep clear of the Greek ships 
which lay at anchor near them, went southward 
toward the Persian fleet. When the boat reach- 
ed the Persian galleys, Sicinnus asked to see the 
commander, and, on being admitted to an inter- 
view with him, he informed him that he came 
from Themistocles, who was the leader, he said, 
of the Athenian portion of the Greek fleet. 

" I am charged," he added, " to say to you 
from Themistocles that he considers the cause 
of the Greeks as wholly lost, and he is now, ac- 
cordingly, desirous himself of coming over to the 
Persian side. This, however, he can not actu- 
ally and openly do, on account of the situation 
in which he is placed ia vespeot to the rest of 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 263 

Message of Themistocles. Measures of the Persians. 



the fleet. He has, however, sent me to inform 
you that the Greek fleet is in a very disordered 
and helpless condition, being distracted by the 
dissensions of the commanders, and the general 
discouragement and despair of the men ; that 
some divisions are secretly intending to make 
their escape ; and that, if you can prevent this 
by surrounding them, or by taking such posi- 
tions as to intercept any who may attempt to 
withdraw, the whole squadron will inevitably 
fall into your hands." 

Having made this communication, Sicinnus 
went on board his boat again, and returned to 
the Greek fleet as secretly and stealthily as he 
came. 

The Persians immediately determined to re- 
sort to the measures which Themistocles had 
recommended to prevent the escape of any part 
of the Greek fleet. There was a small island 
between Salamis and the coast of Attica, that 
is, on the eastern side of Salamis, called Psyt- 
talia, which was in such a position as to com- 
mand, in a great measure, the channel of water 
between Salamis and the main land on this side. 
The Persians sent forward a detachment of gal- 
leys to take possession of this island in the night. 
By this means they hoped to prevent the escape 



264 Xerxes. [B.a480. 

The Persians take possession of the Psyttalia. The Greeks hemmed in. 

of any part of the Greek squadron in that di- 
rection. Besides, they foresaw that in the ap- 
proaching battle the principal scene of the con- 
flict must be in that vicinity, and that, conse- 
quently, the island would become the great re- 
sort of the disabled ships and the wounded men, 
since they would naturally seek refuge on the 
nearest land. To preoccupy this ground, there- 
fore, seemed an important step. It would ena- 
ble them, when the terrible conflict should come 
on, to drive back any wretched refugees who 
might attempt to escape from destruction by 
seeking the shore. 

By taking possession of this island, and sta- 
tioning galleys in the vicinity of it, all which 
was done secretly in the night, the Persians cut 
off all possibility of escape for the Greeks in that 
direction. At the same time, they sent another 
considerable detachment of their fleet to the 
westward, which was the direction toward the 
isthmus, ordering the galleys thus sent to sta- 
tion themselves in such a manner as to prevent 
any portion of the Greek fleet from going round 
the island of Salamis, and making their escape 
through the northwestern channel. By this 
means the Greek fleet was environed on every 
side — hemmed in, though they were not aware 



B.C. 480.] Battle op Salamis. 265 

Aiistidcs. He makes his way through the Persian fleet. 

of it, in such a way as to defeat any attempt 
which any division might make to retire from 
the scene. 

The first intelligence which the Greeks re- 
ceived of their being thus surrounded was from 
an Athenian general named Aristides, who came 
one night from the island of ^gina to the Greek 
fleet, making his way with great difficulty 
through the lines of Persian galleys. Aristides 
had been, in the political conflicts which had 
taken place in former years at Athens, Themis- 
tocles's great rival and enemy. He had been 
defeated in the contests which had taken place, 
and had been banished from Athens. He now, 
however, made his way through the enemy's 
lines, incurring, in doing it, extreme difficulty 
and danger, in order to inform his countrymen 
of their peril, and to assist, if possible, in saving 
them. 

When he reached the Greek fleet, the com- 
manders were in council, agitating, in angry 
and incriminating debates, the perpetually re- 
curring question whether they should retire to 
the isthmus, or remain where they were. Ar- 
istides called Themistocles out of the council. 
Themistocles was very much surprised at see- 
ing his ancient enemy thus unexpectedly ap- 



266 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Interview between Aristides and Themistocles. Their conversation. 

pear. Aristides introduced the conversation by 
saying that he thought that at such a crisis they 
ought to lay aside every private animosity, and 
only emulate each other in the efforts and sac- 
rifices v^hich they could respectively make to 
defend their country ; that he had, accordingly, 
come from ^gina to join the fleet, with a view 
of rendering any aid that it might be in his pow- 
er to afford ; that it was now wholly useless to 
debate the question of retiring to the isthmus, 
for such a movement was no longer possible. 
" The fleet is surrounded," said he. " The Per- 
sian galleys are stationed on every side. It was 
with the utmost difficulty that I could make my 
way through the lines. Even if the whole as- 
sembly, and Eurybiades himself, were resolved 
on withdrawing to the isthmus, the thing could 
not now be done. Return, therefore, and tell 
them this, and say that to defend themselves 
where they are is the only alternative that now 
remains." 

In reply to this communication, Themistocles 
said that nothing could give him greater pleas- 
ure than to learn what Aristides had stated. 
*' The movement which the Persians have 
made," he said, " was in consequence of a com- 
munication which I myself sent to them. I sent 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis^. 267 

Aristides communicates hia intelligence to the assembly. 

it, in order that some of our Greeks, who seem 
so very reluctant to fight, might be compelled to 
do so. But you must come yourself into the as- 
sembly," he added, " and make your statement 
directly to the commanders. They will not be- 
lieve it if they hear it from me. Come in, and 
state what you have seen." 

Aristides accordingly entered the assembly, 
and informed the officers who were convened 
that to retire from their present position was no 
longer possible, since the sea to the west was 
fully guarded by lines of Persian ships, which 
had been stationed there to intercept them. He 
had just come in himself, he said, from ^gina, 
and had found great difficulty in passing through 
the lines, though he had only a single small boat, 
and was favored by the darkness of the night. 
He was convinced that the Greek fleet was en- 
tirely surrounded. 

Having said this, Aristides withdrew. Al- 
though he could come, as a witness, to give his 
testimony in respect to facts, he was not enti- 
tled to take any part in the deliberations. 

The assembly was thrown into a state of the 
greatest possible excitement by the intelligence 
which -Aristides had communicated. Instead 
of producing harmony among them, it made the 



268 Xerxes. [6.0.480. 

Effect of Aristides's intelligence. Further news. 

discord more violent and uncontrollable. Of 
those who had before wished to retire, some 
were now enraged that they had not been al- 
lowed to do so while the opportunity remained ; 
others disbelieved Aristides's statements, and 
were still eager to go ; while the rest, confirm- 
ed in their previous determination to remain 
where they were, rejoiced to find that retreat 
was no longer possible. The debate was con- 
fused and violent. It turned, in a great meas- 
ure, on the degree of credibility to be attached 
to the account which Aristides had given them. 
Many of the assembly wholly disbelieved it. It 
was a stratagem, they maintained, contrived by 
the Athenian party, and those who wished to 
remain, in order to accomplish their end of keep- 
ing the fleet from changing its position. 

The doubts, however, which the assembly 
felt in respect to the truth of Aristides's tidings 
were soon dispelled by new and incontestable 
evidence ; for, while the debate was going on, it 
was announced that a large galley — a trireme, 
as it was called — 'had come in from the Persian 
fleet. This galley proved to be a Greek ship 
from the island of Tenos, one which Xerxes, in 
prosecution of his plan of compelling those por- 
tions of the Grecian territories that he had con- 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 269 

Adventurous courage of Parsetius. Gratitude of the Greeks. 

quered, or that had surrendered to him, to fur- 
nish forces to aid him in subduing the rest, had 
pressed into his service. The commander of 
this galley, unwilling to take part against his 
countrymen in the conflict, had decided to de- 
sert the Persian fleet by taking advantage of 
the night, and to come over to the Greeks. The 
name of the commander of this trireme was Pa- 
raetius. He confirmed fully all that Aristides 
had said. He assured the Greeks that they 
were completely surrounded, and that nothing 
remained for them but to prepare, where they 
were, to meet the attack which would certainly 
be made upon them in the morning. The ar- 
rival of this trireme was thus of very essential 
service to the Greeks. It put an end to their 
discordant debates, and united them, one and 
all, in the work of making resolute preparations 
for action. This vessel was also of very essen- 
tial service in the conflict itself which ensued ; 
and the Greeks were so grateful to Parsetius and 
to his comrades for the adventurous courage 
which they displayed in coming over under such 
circumstances, in such a night, to espouse the 
cause and to share the dangers of their country- 
men, that after the battle they caused all their 
names to be engraved upon a sacred tripod, made 



270 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Final preparations for battle. Friendly offices. 

in the most costly manner for the purpose, and 
then sent the tripod to be deposited at the oracle 
of Delphi, where it long remained a monument 
of this example of Delian patriotism and fidelity. 

As the morning approached, the preparations 
were carried forward with ardor and energy, on 
board both fleets, for the great struggle which 
was to ensue. Plans were formed ; orders were 
given ; arms were examined and placed on the 
decks of the galleys, where they would be most 
ready at hand. The officers and soldiers gave 
mutual charges and instructions to each other 
in respect to the care of their friends and the 
disposal of their effects — charges and instruc- 
tions which each one undertook to execute for 
his friend in case he should survive him. The 
commanders endeavored to animate and encour- 
age their men by cheerful looks, and by words 
of confidence and encouragement. They who 
felt resolute and strong endeavored to inspirit 
the weak and irresolute, while those who shrank 
from the approaching contest, and dreaded the 
result of it, concealed their fears, and endeavor- 
ed to appear impatient for the battle. 

Xerxes caused an elevated seat or throne to 
be prepared for himself on an eminence near 
the shore, upon the main land, in order that he 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 271 

Xerxea's throne. His scribes. Summary punishment. 

might be a personal witness of the battle. He 
had a guard and other attendants around him. 
Among these were a number of scribes or sec- 
retaries, who were prepared with writing ma- 
terials to record the events which might take 
place, as they occurred, and especially to regis- 
ter the names of those whom Xerxes should see 
distinguishing themselves by their courage or 
by their achievements. He justly supposed that 
these arrangements, the whole fleet being fully 
informed in regard to them, would animate the 
several commanders with strong emulation, and 
excite them to make redoubled exertions to per- 
form their part well. The record which was 
thus to be kept, under the personal supervision 
of the sovereign, was with a view to punish- 
ments too, as well as to honors and rewards ; 
and it happened in many instances during the 
battle that ensued, that commanders, who, after 
losing their ships, escaped to the shore, were 
brought up before Xerxes's throne, and there ex- 
piated their fault or their misfortune, whichever 
it might have been, by being beheaded on the 
spot, without mercy. Some of the officers thus 
executed were Greeks, brutally slaughtered for 
not being successful in fighting, by compulsion, 
against their own countrymen. 



272 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Speech of Themistocles. He embark^ his men. 

As the dawn approached, Themistocles called 
together as many of the Athenian forces as it 
was possible to convene, assembling them at a 
place upon the shore of Salamis where he could 
conveniently address them, and there made a 
speech to them, as was customary with the 
Greek commanders before going into battle. 
He told them that, in such contests as that in 
which they were about to engage, the result de- 
pended, not on the relative numbers of the com- 
batants, but on the resolution and activity which 
they displayed. He reminded them of the in- 
stances in which small bodies of men, firmly 
banded together by a strict discipline, and ani- 
mated by courage and energy, had overthrown 
enemies whose numbers far exceeded their own. 
The Persians were more numerous, he admit- 
ted, than they, but still the Greeks would con- 
quer them. If they faithfully obeyed their or- 
ders, and acted strictly and perseveringly in con- 
cert, according to the plans formed by the com- 
manders, and displayed the usual courage and 
resolution of Greeks, he was sure of victory. 

As soon as Themistocles had finisheu his 
speech, he ordered his men to embark. .Aid the 
fleet immediately afterward formed itself in bat- 
tle array. 



B.C.480.] Battle of Salamis. 273 

Excitement and confusion. Commencement of the battle. 

Notwithstanding the strictness of the order 
and discipline wliicli generally prevailed in 
Greek armaments of every kind, there was 
great excitement and much confusion in the 
fleet while making all these preparations, and 
this excitement and confusion increased contin- 
ually as the morning advanced and the hour for 
the conflict drew nigh. The passing of boats to 
and fro, the dashing of the oars, the clangor of 
the weapons, the vociferations of orders by the 
officers and of responses by the men, mingled 
with each other in dreadful turmoil, while all 
the time the vast squadrons were advancing to- 
ward each other, each party of combatants eager 
to begin the contest. In fact, so full of wild ex- 
citement was the scene, that at length the bat- 
tle was found to be raging on every side, while 
no one knew or could remember how it besfan. 
Some said that a ship, which had been sent away 
a short time before to ^gina to obtain succors, 
was returning that morning, and that she com- 
menced the action as she came tlirough the Per- 
sian lines. Others said the Greek squadron ad- 
vafT-fsd as soon as they could see, and attacked 
the Pi€,. "ans; and there were some whose im- 
aginations were- so much excited by the scene, 
that they saw a female form portrayed among; 

8 



274 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Fury of the conflict. Modem naval battles. 

the dim mists of the morning, that urged the 
Greeks onward by beckonings and calls. They 
heard her voice, they said, crying to them, 
'' Come on ! come on ! this is no time to linger 
on your oars." 

However this may be, the battle was soon fu- 
riously raging on every part of the Bay of Sala- 
mis, exhibiting a wide-spread scene of conflict, 
fury, rage, despair, and death, such as had then 
been seldom witnessed in any naval conflict, and 
such as human eyes can now never look upon 
again. In modern warfare the smoke of the 
guns soon draws an impenetrable veil over the 
scene of horror, and the perpetual thunder of the 
artillery overpowers the general din. In a mod- 
ern battle, therefore, none of the real horrors of 
the conflict can either be heard or seen by any 
spectator placed beyond the immediate scene of 
it. The sights and the sounds are alike buried 
and concealed beneath the smoke and the noise 
of the cannonading. There were, however, no 
such causes in this case to obstruct the observa- 
tions which Xerxes was making from his throne 
on the shore. The air was calm, the sky serene, 
the water was smooth, and the atmosphere was 
as transparent and clear at the end of the bat- 
tle as at the beginning. Xerxes could discern 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 275 

Observations of Xerxes. Artemisia. 

every ship, and follow it with his eye in all its 
motions. He could see who advanced and who 
retreated. Out of the hundreds of separate con- 
flicts he could choose any one, and watch the 
progress of it from the commencement to the 
termination. He could see the combats on the 
decks, the falling of repulsed assailants into the 
water, the weapons broken, the wounded carried 
away, and swimmers struggling like insects on 
the smooth surface of the sea. He could see 
the wrecks, too, which were drifted upon the 
shores, and the captured galleys, which, after 
those who defended them had been vanquished 
— some killed, others thrown overboard, and 
others made prisoners — were slowly towed away 
by the victors to a place of safety. 

There was one incident which occurred in 
this scene, as Xerxes looked down upon it from 
the eminence where he sat, which greatly in- 
terested and excited him, though he was deceiv- 
ed in respect to the true nature of it. The in- 
cident was one of Artemisia's stratagems. It 
must be premised, in relating the story, that 
Artemisia was not without enemies among the 
officers of the Persian fleet. Many of them 
were envious of the high distinction which she 
enjoyed, and jealous of the attention which she 



276 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Enemies of Artemisia. Her quarrel witii Damasithymus. 

received from the king, and of the influence 
which she possessed over him. This feeling 
showed itself very distinctly at the grand coun- 
cil, when she gave her advice, in connection 
with that of the other commanders, to the king. 
Among the most decided of her enemies was a 
certain captain named Damasithymus. Arte- 
misia had had a special quarrel with him while 
the fleet was coming through the Hellespont, 
which, though settled for the time, left the 
minds of both parties in a state of great hostil- 
ity toward each other. 

It happened, in the course of the battle, that 
the ship which Artemisia personally command- 
ed and that of Damasithymus were engaged, 
together with other Persian vessels, in the same 
part of the bay ; and at a time w^hen the ardor 
and confusion of the conflict was at its height, 
the galley of Artemisia, and some others that 
were in company with hers, became separated 
from the rest, perhaps by the too eager pursuit 
of an enemy, and as other Greek ships came up 
suddenly to the assistance of their comrades, the 
Persian vessels found themselves in great dan- 
ger, and began to retreat, followed by their en- 
emies. We speak of the retreating galleys as 
Persian, because they were on the Persian side 



B.C.480.] Battle of Salamis. S77 

SU'atagein of Artemisia. She attaclts Damasithymua. 

in the contest, though it happened that they 
were really ships from Greek nations, which 
Xerxes had bribed or forced into his service. 
The Greeks knew them to be enemies, by the 
Persian flag which they bore. 

In the retreat, and while the ships were more 
or less mingled together in the confusion, Arte- 
misia perceived that the Persian galley nearest 
her was that of Damasithymus. She immedi- 
ately caused her own Persian flag to be pulled 
down, and, resorting to such other artifices as 
might tend to make her vessel appear to be a 
Greek galley, she began to act as if she were 
one of the pursuers instead of one of the pur- 
sued. She bore down upon the ship of Dama- 
sithymus, saying to her crew that to attack and 
sink that ship was the only way to save their 
own lives. They accordingly attacked it with 
the utmost fury. The Athenian ships which 
were near, seeing Artemisia's galley thus en- 
gaged, supposed that it was one of their own, 
and pressed on, leaving the vessel of Damasi- 
thymus at Artemisia's mercy. It was such 
mercy as would be expected of a woman who 
would volunteer to take command of a squad- 
ron of ships of war, and go forth on an active 
campaign to fight for her life among such fero- 



278 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Artemisia kills Damasithymus. Xerxes's opinion of her valor. 

cious tigers as Greek soldiers always were, con- 
sidering it all an excursion of pleasure. Arte- 
misia killed Damasithymus and all of his crew, 
and sunk his ship, and then, the crisis of dan- 
ger being past, she made good her retreat back 
to the Persian lines. She probably felt no spe- 
cial animosity against the crew of this ill-fated 
vessel, but she thought it most prudent to leave 
no man alive to tell the story. 

Xerxes watched this transaction from his 
place on the hill with extreme interest and 
pleasure. He saw the vessel of Artemisia bear- 
ing down upon the other, which last he sup- 
posed, of course, from Artemisia's attacking it, 
was a vessel of the enemy. The only subject 
of doubt was whether the attacking ship was 
really that of Artemisia. The officers who stood 
about Xerxes at the time that the transaction 
occurred assured him that it was. They knew 
it well by certain peculiarities in its construc- 
tion. Xerxes then watched the progress of the 
contest with the most eager interest, and, when 
he saw the result of it, he praised Artemisia in 
the highest terms, saying that the men in his 
fleet behaved like women, while the only wom- 
an in it behaved like a man. 

Thus Artemisia's exploit operated like a 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 27^ 

Progress of the battle. The Persians give way. 

double stratagem. Both the Greeks and the 
Persians were deceived, and she gained an ad- 
vantage by both the deceptions. She saved her 
life by leading the Greeks to believe that her gal- 
ley was their friend, and she gained great glory 
and renown among the Persians by making 
them believe that the vessel which she sunk 
was that of an enemy. 

Though these and some of the other scenes 
and incidents which Xerxes witnessed as he 
looked down upon the battle gave him pleasure, 
yet the curiosity and interest with which he sur- 
veyed the opening of the contest were gradually 
changed to impatience, vexation, and rage as he 
saw in its progress that the Greeks were every 
where gaining the victory. Notwithstanding 
the discord and animosity which had reigned 
among the commanders in their councils and de- 
bates, the men were united, resolute, and firm 
when the time arrived for action ; and they 
fought with such desperate courage and activi- 
ty, and, at the same time, with so much cool- 
ness, circumspection, and discipline, that the 
Persian lines were, before many hours, every 
where compelled to give way. A striking ex- 
ample of the indomitable and efficient resolu- 
tion which, on such occasions, always charao- 



280 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Heroism of Aristides. He captures Psyttalia. 

terized the Greeks, was shown in the conduct 
of Aristides. The reader will recollect that the 
Persians, on the night before the battle, had 
taken possession of the island of Psyttalia — 
which was near the center of the scene of con- 
test — for the double purpose of enabling them- 
selves to use it as a place of refuge and retreat 
during the battle, and of preventing their ene- 
mies from doing so. Now Aristides had no com- 
mand. He had been expelled from Athens by 
the influence of Themistocles and his other en- 
emies. He had come across from JEgiua. to the 
fleet at Salamis, alone, to give his countrymen 
information of the dispositions which the Per- 
sians had made for surrounding them. When 
the battle began, he had been left, it seems, on 
the shore of Salamis a spectator. There was 
a small body of troops left there also, as a guard 
to the shore. In the course of the combat, when 
Aristides found that the services of this guard 
were no longer likely to be required where they 
were, he placed himself at the head of them, ob^ 
tained possession of boats or a galley, transport- 
ed the men across the channel, landed them on 
the island of Psyttalia, conquered the post, and 
killed every man that the Persians had station- 
ed there. 



B.C. 480.] Battle of Salamis. 281 

The Greeks victorious. Repairiug damages. 

When the day was spent, and the evening 
came on, it was found that the result of the bat- 
tle was a Greek victory, and yet it was not a 
victory so decisive as to compel the Persians 
wholly to retire. Vast numbers of the Persian 
ships were destroyed, but still so many remain- 
ed, that when at night they drew back from the 
scene of the conflict, toward their anchorage 
ground at Phalerum, the Greeks were very 
willing to leave them unmolested there. The 
Greeks, in fact, had full employment on the fol- 
lowing day in reassembling the scattered rem- 
nants of their own fleet, repairing the damages 
that they had sustained, taking care of their 
wounded men, and, in a word, attending to the 
thousand urgent and pressing exigencies always 
arising in the service of a fleet after a battle, 
even when it has been victorious in the contest. 
They did not know in exactly what* condition 
the Persian fleet had been left, nor how far there 
might be danger of a renewal of the conflict on 
the following day. They devoted all their time 
and attention, therefore, to strengthening their 
defenses and reorganizing the fleet, so as to be 
ready in case a new assault should be made 
upon them. 

But Xerxes had no intention of any new at- 



282 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes resolves on flight. The sea after the battle, 

tack. The loss of this battle gave a final blow 
to his expectations of being able to carry his con- 
quests in Greece any further. He too, like the 
Greeks, employed his men in industrious and 
vigorous efforts to repair the damages which had 
been done, and to reassemble and reorganize that 
portion of the fleet which had not been destroy- 
ed. While, however, his men were doing this, 
he was himself revolving in his mind, moodily 
and despairingly, plans, not for new conflicts, 
but for the safest and speediest way of making 
his own personal escape from the dangers around 
him, back to his home in Susa. 

In the mean time, the surface of the sea, far 
and wide in every direction, was covered with 
the wrecks, and remnants, and fragments strew- 
ed over it by the battle. Dismantled hulJcs, 
masses of entangled spars and rigging, broken 
oars, weapons of every description, and the 
swollen and ghastly bodies of the dead, floated 
on the rolling swell of the sea wherever the 
winds or the currents carried them. At length 
many of these mournful memorials of the strife 
found their way across the whole breadth of the 
Mediterranean, and were driven up upon the 
beach on the coast of Africa, at a barbarous 
country called Colias. The savages dragged 



B.O.^SU.J xIattle op Salamis. 283 

Fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. 

the fragments up out of the sand to use as fuel 
for their fires, pleased with their unexpected' ac- 
quisitions, but wholly ignorant, of course, of the 
nature of the dreadful tragedy to which their 
coming was due. The circumstance, however, 
explained to the Greeks an ancient prophecy 
which had been uttered long before in Athens, 
and which the interpreters of such mysteries 
had never been able to understand. The proph- 
ecy was this : 

The Colian dames on Afric's shores 
Shall roast their food with Persian oars. 



284 ^^ Xerxes^^^ [B.C. 480. 

Mardonius. His apprehensions after the battle 



Chapter XII. 

The Return of Xerxes to Persia. 

'V/TAE-DONIUS, it will be recollected, was 
— *-^ the commander-in-chief of the forces of 
Xerxes, and thus, next to Xerxes himself, he 
was the officer highest in rank of all those who 
attended the expedition. He was, in fact, a 
sort of prime minister, on whom the responsi- 
bility for almost all the measures for the gov- 
ernment and conduct of the expedition had been 
thrown. Men in such positions, while they 
may expect the highest rewards and honors 
from their sovereign in case of success, have al- 
ways reason to apprehend the worst of conse- 
quences to themselves in case of failure. The 
night after the battle of Salamis, accordingly, 
Mardonius was in great fear. He did not dis- 
trust the future success of the expedition if it 
were allowed to go on ; but, knowing the char- 
acter of such despots as those who ruled great 
nations in that age of the world, he was well 
aware that he might reasonably expect, at any 
moment, the appearance of officers sent from 
Xerxes to cut off his head. 



B.C. 480.] The Return to Persia. 285 

Depression of Xerxes. Mardonius's address to hira. 

His anxiety was increased by observing that 
Xerxes seemed very much depressed, and very 
restless and uneasy, after the battle, as if he 
were revolving in his mind some extraordinary 
design. He presently thought that he perceiv- 
ed indications that the king was planning a re- 
treat. Mardonius, after much hesitation, con- 
cluded to speak to him, and endeavor to dispel 
his anxieties and fears, and lead him to take a 
more favorable view of the prospects of the ex- 
pedition. He accordingly accosted him on the 
subject somewhat as follows : 

''It is true," said he, "that we were not as 
successful in the combat yesterday as we de- 
sired to be ; but this reverse, as well as all the 
preceding disasters that we have met with, is, 
after all, of comparatively little moment. Your 
majesty has gone steadily on, accomplishing 
most triumphantly all the substantial objects 
aimed at in undertaking the expedition. Your 
troops have advanced successfully by land 
against all opposition. With them you have 
traversed Thrace, Macedon, and Thessaly. You 
have fought your way, against the most despe- 
rate resistance, through the Pass of Thermop- 
ylae. You have overrun all Northern Greece. 
You have burned Athens. Thus, far from there 



286 Xerxes. ' [B.C. 480. 

Mardonius offers to complete the conque6t of Greece. 

being any uncertainty or doubt in respect to the 
success of the expedition, we see that all the 
great objects which you proposed by it are al- 
ready accomplished. The fleet, it is true, has 
now suffered extensive damage ; but we must 
remember that it is upon the army, not upon 
the fleet, that our hopes and expectations main- 
ly depend. The army is safe ; and it can not 
be possible that the Greeks can hereafter bring 
any force into the field by which it can be seri- 
ously endangered." 

By these and similar sentiments, Mardonius 
endeavored to revive and restore the failing cour- 
age and resolution of the king. He found, how- 
ever, that he met with very partial success. 
Xerxes was silent, thoughtful, and oppressed 
apparently with a sense of anxious concern. 
Mardonius finally proposed that, even if the 
king should think it best to return himself to 
Susa, he should not abandon the enterprise 
of subduing Greece, but that he should leave 
a portion of the army under his (Mardonius's) 
charge, and he would undertake, he said, to com- 
plete the work which had been so successfully 
begun. Three hundred thousand men, he was 
convinced, would be sufficient for the purpose. 

This suggestion seems to have made a favor- 



B.C. 480.] The Return to Persia. 287 

Effect of Mardonius's address. Xerxes consults Artemisia. 

able impression on the mind of Xerxes. He was 
disposed, in fact, to be pleased with any plan, 
provided it opened the way for his own escape 
from the dangers in which he imagined that he 
was entangled. He said that he would consult 
some of the other commanders upon the subject. 
He did so, and then, before coming to a final de- 
cision, he determined to confer with Artemisia. 
He remembered that she had counseled him not 
to attack the Greeks at Salamis, and, as the re- 
sult had proved that counsel to be eminently 
wise, he felt the greater confidence in asking 
her judgment again. 

He accordingly sent for Artemisia, and, di- 
recting all the officers, as well as his own at- 
tendants, to retire, he held a private consulta- 
tion with her in respect to his plans. 

"Mardonius proposes," said he, " that the ex- 
pedition should on no account be abandoned in 
consequence of this disaster, for he says that the 
fleet is a very unimportant part of our force, and 
that the army still remains unharmed. He pro- 
poses that, if I should decide myself to return to 
Persia, I should leave three hundred thousand 
men with him, and he undertakes, if I will do 
so, to complete, with them, the subjugation of 
Greece. Tell me what you think of this plan. 



288 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Artemisia hesitates. Her advice to Xerxes. 

You evinced so much sagacity in foreseeing the 
result of this engagement at Salamis, that I par- 
ticularly wish to know your opinion." 

Artemisia, after pausing a little to reflect 
upon the subject, saying, as she hesitated, that 
it was rather difficult to decide, under the ex- 
traordinary circumstances in which they were 
placed, what it really was best to do, came at 
length to the conclusion that it would be wisest 
for the king to accede to Mardonius's proposal. 
" Since he offers, of his own accord, to remain 
and undertake to complete the subjugation of 
Greece, you can, very safely to yourself, allow 
him to make the experiment. The great object 
which was announced as the one which you had 
chiefly in view in the invasion of Greece, was the 
burning of Athens. This is already accomplish- 
ed. You have done, therefore, what you under- 
took to do, and can, consequently, now return 
yourself, without dishonor. If Mardonius suc- 
ceeds in his attempt, the glory of it will redound 
to you. His victories will be considered as only 
the successful completion of what you began. 
On the other hand, if he fails, the disgrace of 
failure will be his alone, and the injury will be 
confined to his destruction. In any event, your 
person, your interests, and your honor are safe, 



B.C. 480.] The Return to Persia. 289 

Xerxes adopts Artemisia's advice. His anxiety increases. 

and if Mardonius is willing to take the respons- 
ibility and incur the danger involved in the plan 
that he proposes, I would give him the oppor- 
tunity." 

Xerxes adopted the view of the subject which 
Artemisia thus presented with the utmost read- 
iness and pleasure. That advice is always very 
welcome which makes the course that we had 
previously decided upon as the most agreeable 
seem the most wise. Xerxes immediately de- 
termined on returning to Persia himself, and 
leaving Mardonius to complete the conquest. In 
carrying out this design, he concluded to march 
to the northward by land, accompanied by a large 
portion of his army and by all his principal offi- 
cers, until he reached the Hellespont. Then 
he was to give up to Mardonius the command 
of such troops as should be selected to remain 
in Greece, and, crossing the Hellespont, return 
himself to Persia with the remainder. 

If, as is generally the case, it is a panic that 
causes a flight, a flight, in its turn, always in- 
creases a panic. It happened, in accordance 
with this general law, that, as soon as the 
thoughts of Xerxes were once turned toward an 
escape from Greece, his fears increased, and his 
mind became more and more the prey of a rest- 



290 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes commences his retreat He sends his family to Ephesus. 

less uneasiness and anxiety lest he should not 
be able to effect his escape. He feared that the 
bridge of boats would have been broken down, 
and then how would he be able to cross the Hel- 
lespont ? To prevent the Greek fleet Irom pro- 
ceeding to the northward, and thus intercepting 
his passage by destroying the bridge, he determ- 
ined to conceal, as long as possible, his own de- 
parture. Accordingly, while he was making 
the most efficient and rapid arrangements on 
the land for abandoning the whole region, he 
brought up his fleet by sea, and began to build, 
by means of the ships, a floating bridge from the 
main land to the island of Salamis, as if he were 
intent only on advancing. He continued this 
work all day, postponing his intended retreat 
until the night should come, in order to conceal 
his movements. In the course of the day he 
placed all his family and family relatives on 
board of Artemisia's ship, under the charge of 
a tried and faithful domestic. Artemisia was 
to convey them, as rapidly as possible, to Ephe- 
sus, a strong city in Asia Minor, where Xerxes 
supposed that they would be safe. 

In the night the fleet, in obedience to the or- 
ders which Xerxes had given them, abandoned 
their bridge and all their other undertakings, 



B.C.480.] The Return to Persia. 291 

Excitement in the Greek fleet. The Persians pursued. 

and set sail. They were to make the best of 
their way to the Hellespont, and post them- 
selves there to defend the bridge of boats until 
Xerxes should arrive. On the following morn- 
ing, accordingly, when the sun rose, the Greeks 
found, to their utter astonishment, that their 
enemies were gone. 

A scene of the greatest animation and excite- 
ment on board the Greek fleet at once ensued. 
The commanders resolved on an immediate pur- 
suit. The seamen hoisted their sails, raised 
their anchors, and manned their oars, and the 
whole squadron was soon in rapid motion. The 
fleet went as far as to the island of Andros, look- 
ing eagerly all around the horizon, in every di- 
rection, as they advanced, but no signs of the 
fugitives were to be seen. The ships then drew 
up to the shore, and the commanders were con- 
vened in an assembly, summoned by Eury bla- 
des, on the land, for consultation. 

A debate ensued, in which the eternal enmi- 
ty and dissension between the Athenian and 
Peloponnesian Greeks broke out anew. There 
was, however, now some reason for the disagree- 
ment. The Athenian cause was already ruin- 
ed. Their capital had been burned, their coun- 
try ravaged, and their wives and children driven 



292 ' Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Debate among the generals. Themistocles outvoted. 

forth to exile and misery. Nothing remained 
now for them but hopes of revenge. They were 
eager, therefore, to press on, and overtake the 
Persian galleys in their flight, or, if this could 
not be done, to reach the Hellespont before Xerx- 
es should arrive there, and intercept his passage 
by destroying the bridge. This was the policy 
which Themistocles advocated. Eurybiades, 
on the other hand, and the Peloponnesian com- 
manders, urged the expediency of not driving 
the Persians to desperation by harassing them 
too closely on their retreat. They were formi- 
dable enemies after all, and, if they were now 
disposed to retire and leave the country, it was 
the true policy of the Greeks to allow them to 
do so. To destroy the bridge of boats would 
only be to take effectual measures for keeping 
the pest among them. Themistocles was out- 
voted. It was determined best to allow the 
Persian forces to retire. 

Themistocles, when he found that his coun- 
sels were overruled, resorted to another of the 
audacious stratagems that marked his career, 
which was to send a second pretended message 
of friendship to the Persian king. He employ- 
ed the same Sicinnus on this occasion that he 
had sent before into the Persian fleet, on the 



B.C. 480.] The Return to Persia. 293 

Another stratagem of Themistocles. His message to Xerxes. 

eve of the battle of Salamis. A galley was giv- 
en to Sicinnus, with a select crew of faithful 
men. They were all put under the most sol- 
emn oaths never to divulge to any person, un- 
der any circumstances, the nature and object 
of their commission. With this company, Si- 
cinnus left the fleet secretly in the night, and 
went to the coast of Attica. Landing here, he 
left the galley, with the crew in charge of it, 
upon the shore, and, with one or two select at- 
tendants, he made his way to the Persian camp, 
and desired an interview with the king. On be- 
ing: admitted to an audience, he said to Xerxes 
that he had been sent to him by Themistocles, 
whom he represented as altogether the most 
prominent man among the Greek commanders, 
to say that the Greeks had resolved on pressing 
forward to the Hellespont, to intercept him on 
his return, but that he, Themistocles, had dis- 
suaded them from it, under the influence of the 
same friendship for Xerxes which had led him to 
send a friendly communication to the Persians 
before the late battle ; that, in consequence of 
the arguments and persuasions of Themistocles, 
the Greek squadrons would remain where they 
then were, on the southern coasts, leaving Xerx- 
es to retire without molestation. 



294 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Duplicity of Themistocles. Retreat of Xerxes. 

All this was false, but Themistocles thought 
it would serve his purpose well to make the state- 
ment ; for, in case he should, at any future time, 
in following the ordinary fate of the bravest and 
most successful Greek generals, be obliged to fly 
in exile from his country to save his life, it might 
be important for him to have a good understand- 
ing beforehand with the King of Persia, though 
a good understanding, founded on pretensions so 
hypocritical and empty as these, would seem to 
be worthy of very little reliance. In fact, for a 
Greek general, discomfited in the councils of 
his own nation, to turn to the Persian king with 
such prompt and cool assurance, for the purpose 
of gaining his friendship by tendering falsehoods 
so bare and professions so hollow, was an instance 
of audacious treachery so original and lofty as to 
be almost sublime. 

Xerxes pressed on with the utmost diligence 
toward the north. The country had been rav- 
aged and exhausted by his march through it in 
coming down, and now, in returning, he found 
infinite difficulty in obtaining supplies of food 
and water for his army. Forty-five days were 
consumed in getting back to the Hellespont. 
During all this time the privations and suffer- 
ings of the troops increased every day. The sol- 



B.C. 480.] The Return to Persia. 295 

Horrors of the retreat. Sufterings from hunger. 

diers were spent with fatigue, exhausted with 
hunger, and harassed with incessant apprehen- 
sions of attacks from their enemies. Thousands 
of the sick and wounded that attempted at first 
to follow the army, gave out by degrees as the 
columns moved on. Some were left at the en- 
campments ; others lay down by the road-sides, 
in the midst of the day's march, wherever their 
waning strength finally failed them ; and every 
where broken chariots, dead and dying beasts 
of burden, and the bodies of soldiers, that lay 
neglected where they fell, encumbered and chok- 
ed the way. In a word, all the roads leading to- 
ward the northern provinces exhibited in full 
perfection those awful scenes which usually 
mark the track of a great army retreating from 
an invasion. 

The men were at length reduced to extreme 
distress for food. They ate the roots and stems 
of the herbage, and finally stripped the very bark 
from the trees and devoured it, in the vain hope 
that it might afford some nutriment to re-en- 
force the vital principle, for a little time at least, 
in the dreadful struggle which it was waging 
within them. There are certain forms of pesti- 
lential disease which, in cases like this, always 
set in to hasten the work which famine alone 



296 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Famine and disease. Xerxes crosses the Hellespont. 

would be too slow in performing. Accordingly, 
as was to have been expected, camp fevers, chol- 
eras, and other corrupt and infectious maladies, 
broke out with great violence as the army ad- 
vanced along the northern shores of the ^gean 
Sea ; and as every victim to these dreadful and 
hopeless disorders helped, by his own dissolu- 
tion, to taint the air for all the rest, the wretch- 
ed crowd was, in the end, reduced to the last 
extreme of misery and terror. 

At length Xerxes, with a miserable remnant 
of his troops, arrived at Abydos, on the shores 
of the Hellespont. He found the bridge broken 
down. The winds and storms had demolished 
what the Greeks had determined to spare. The 
immense structure, which it had cost so much 
toil and time to rear, had wholly disappeared, 
leaving no traces of its existence, except the 
wrecks which lay here and there half buried in 
the sand along the shore. There were some 
small boats at hand, and Xerxes, embarking in 
one of them, with a few attendants in the oth- 
ers, and leaving the exhausted and wretched 
remnant of his army behind, was rowed across 
the strait, and landed at last safely again on the 
Asiatic shores. 

The place of his landing was Sestos. From 



B.C. 480.] 


T 


HE 


R 


ETURN 


TO 


Persia. 


299 


Fate of Mardonius. 










Xerxes arrives 


at Susa. 



Sestos he went to Sardis, and from Sard is he 
proceeded, in a short time, to Susa. Mardoni- 
us was left in Greece. Mardonius was a gen- 
eral of great military experience and skill, and, 
when left to himself, he found no great difficul- 
ty in reorganizing the army, and in putting it 
again in an efficient condition. He was not 
able, however, to accomplish the undertaking 
which he had engaged to perform. After vari- 
ous adventures, prosperous and adverse, which 
it would be foreign to our purpose here to de- 
tail, he was at last defeated in a great battle, 
and killed on the field. The Persian army was 
now obliged to give up the contest, and was ex- 
pelled from Greece finally and forever. 

When Xerxes reached Susa, he felt overjoy- 
ed to fitnd himself once more safe, as he thought, 
in his own palaces. He looked back upon the 
hardships, exposures, and perils through which 
he had passed, and, thankful for having so nar- 
rowly escaped from them, he determined to en- 
counter no such hazards again. He had had 
enough of ambition and glory. He was now 
going to devote himself to ease and pleasure. 
Such a man would not naturally be expected to 
be very scrupulous in respect to the means of 
enjoyment, or to the character of the compan- 



SOO Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Xerxes's dissolute life. His three sons. 

ions whom he would select to share his pleas- 
ures, and the life of the king soon presented one 
continual scene of dissipation, revelry, and vice. 
He gave himself up to such prolonged carousals, 
that one night was sometimes protracted through 
the following day into another. The adminis- 
tration of his government was left wholly to his 
ministers, and every personal duty was neglect- 
ed, that he might give himself to the most aban- 
doned and profligate indulgence of his appetites 
and passions. 

He had three sons who might be considered 
as heirs to his throne — Darius, Hystaspes, and 
Artaxerxes. Hystaspes was absent in a neigh- 
boring province. The others were at home. He 
had also a very prominent officer in his court, 
whose name, Artabanus, was the same with 
that of the uncle who had so strongly attempt- 
ed to dissuade him from undertaking the con- 
quest of Greece. Artabanus the uncle disap- 
pears finally from view at the time when Xerx- 
es dismissed him to return to Susa at the first 
crossing of the Hellespont. This second Arta- 
banus was the captain of the king's body-guard, 
and, consequently, the common executioner of 
the despot's decrees. Being thus established in 
his palace, surrounded by his family, and pro- 



B.C. 480.] The Return to Persia. 301 

Artabanus, captain of the guard. He assassinates Xerxee. 

tected by Artabanus and his guard, the mon- 
arch felt that all his toils and dangers were over, 
and that there was nothing now before him but 
a life of ease, of pleasure, and of safety. In- 
stead of this, he was, in fact, in the most immi- 
nent danger. Artabanus was already plotting 
his destruction. 

One day, in the midst of one of his carousals, 
he became angry with his oldest son Darius for 
some cause, and gave Artabanus an order to 
kill him. Artabanus neglected to obey this 
order. The king had been excited with wine 
when he gave it, and Artabanus supposed that 
all recollection of the command would pass away 
from his mind with the excitement that occa- 
sioned it. The king did not, however, so readi- 
ly forget. The next day he demanded why his 
order had not been obeyed. Artabanus now be- 
gan to fear for his own safety, and he determin- 
ed to proceed at once to the execution of a plan 
which he had long been revolving, of destroy- 
ing the whole of Xerxes's family, and placing 
himself on the throne in their stead. He con- 
trived to bring the king's chamberlain into his 
schemes, and, with the connivance and aid of 
this ofhcer, he went at night into the king's bed- 
chamber, and murdered the monarch in his sleep. 



302 Xerxes. [B.C. 480. 

Artaxerxes kills his brother. He succeeds to the throne. 

Leaving the bloody weapon with which the 
deed had been perpetrated by the side of the vic- 
tim, Artabanus went immediately into the bed- 
chamber of Artaxerxes, the youngest son, and, 
awaking him suddenly, he told him, with tones 
of voice and looks expressive of great excitement 
and alarm, that his father had been killed, and 
that it was his brother Darius that had killed 
him. ^' His motive is," continued Artabanus, 
"to obtain the throne, and, to make the more 
sure of an undisturbed possession of it, he is in- 
tending to murder you next. Rise, therefore, 
and defend your life." 

Artaxerxes was aroused to a sudden and un- 
controllable paroxysm of anger at this intelli- 
gence. He seized his weapon, and rushed into 
the apartment of his innocent brother, and slew 
him on the spot. Other summary assassina- 
tions of a similar kind followed in this compli- 
cated tragedy. Among the victims, Artabanus 
and all his adherents were slain, and at length 
Artaxerxes took quiet possession of the throne, 
and reigned in his father's stead. 



The End. 



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